


The Gray Bridge

by Cerric



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25558039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerric/pseuds/Cerric
Summary: Before his world had burned down around him, she had made him a promise. Cloud was sure both it and its guarantor was dead until a certain SOLDIER showed up in his neck of Midgar... Role-reversal AU set in-game.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	1. Tifa Lockhart, 1st Class SOLDIER

The air swirled past her, metal rumbled underfoot, and as the world's color and shape changed and changed and _changed_ , a shutter near her rushed open and closed after a single sentence.

'You're up, Merc.'

The words bounced around in Tifa's head as she crept closer to the train's top and tightened her grip on the sword on her back. There was something about how he said it that made her feel _right_ — like this was what she was meant to do. If Shinra didn't pay well, she'd just have to make money on her own.

Her body leaned into the train as she passed under a bridge and sighted the end of the rail — a service station, marked by the evenly-placed Mako station lamps. Beyond it, the reactor loomed, glowing ephemeral green and pulsing occasionally with light. No doubt there'd be more defenses waiting inside for her. But getting to its core was what she was being paid to do, and she had no problems busting some Shinra heads along the way to do that.

As the train's wheels started to screech to a halt she spotted shifting: two security guards in gray-white and plated Shinra grunt armor and helmets moving out onto the platform for an inspection. _Perfect._ Sticking close to the roof of the car she crawled backward.

'Supplies, eh?' The first guard walked up to the train's outside tag, squinting at it underneath the red-eyed visor built into his helmet. 'Sorta late for that, isn't it?'

'Who are you talking to?' The second guard walked the train's length away from the first, gun dipping with his gait. 'Me? I wouldn't know.'

'This isn't the first train we checked.' The guard rapped his gun against the train's metal. Damn thing sounded empty. 'You know,' he said, looking for his friend, 'I thought we agreed that when I speak, no matter how dumb a comment it is, you would at least respond—'

The man's mouth snapped shut as a bending shape stepped out from the space between two train cars. A tall, lithe, _muscled_ woman, wearing a sleeveless purple turtleneck, black military pants, and a metal pauldron over her left shoulder, turned on her toes to face him. Beside her on the platform a _massive_ sword almost as long as her and half as wide rested on its edge, handle in both hands and close to her side, draped in tight onyx-black braids of hair falling from her head — and just inches away from the splayed out other guard.

'Sorry,' she said, as she gripped her sword, flashing it from her hip. The flat of her blade smacked against the guard and floored him. As he hit the ground his helmet flew off his head and ricocheted onto the tracks.

Tifa sighed as she glanced over the guard to make sure he was out cold. Content, she relatched the sword to her back and faced the train. 'All clear.'

As soon as the words left her mouth — as if he was _that_ impatient — a bear of a man, all muscle and bulk, taut skin, underneath a green military vest and black cargo pants, stepped out. Where his right arm should have been a minigun swung down from his elbow. He gave a shake of his stubbled face and sunglasses-shaded eyes once out of the freight compartment's gloom and underneath the green-white glow of the nearest station lamp.

'Damn,' Barret said through a grunt as he cursorily examined the two unconscious guards. 'And here I thought you were full of shit.'

Tifa ignored the urge to grip her sword's pommel. 'What part, specifically?' She asked, keeping her gaze on him.

'I've never seen nor heard of a female SOLDIER before.' Tifa couldn't quite see his shaded eyes; as she tried to make them out, Barret turned away from her. 'But this op ain't over yet. Maybe you'll prove me wrong, after all.'

Before Tifa could give any sort of reply, he flung the sliding door to the freight train all the open and banged on metal with his gun-arm. 'Guys, coast is clear! Come on out!'

Just as quick as he had emerged three more people, all dressed with red headbands and polished metal armor covering some part of their bodies, rushed out from the train, not giving Tifa's a moment's notice and instead plowing straight into the station beside them.

'There's only four of you?' Tifa asked.

Barret shoved the door back closed. 'You know as much as you need to know, Merc. So from this point on you stick on us like glue.' Barret took a few steps towards the station and stopped to look at the glowing mako reactor towering above them. Faint green mist rose from its top and melded imperceptibly with the gray-green clouds high above. 'Until this reactor is nothing but rubble, you ain't leaving my sight.'

* * *

'So… not to pry, but Cloud recommended you for this mission, right?'

Tifa's hypervigilant focus was broken as one of the members of Barret's team lobbed a question at her while they were waiting for a security door to open. So far they had gotten a fair way into the reactor without much trouble. Her hands were still itching for her sword's grip, though.

'What's your name?' Tifa eyed the girl working on opening the security door holding them all up.

'Jessie. How do you know him?'

A stray memory brushed across her vision. A younger, shorter him. 'I knew Cloud growing up.'

' _Really?'_

' _Ahem_.'

From the rear Barret shot Jessie a forbidding look, but this only made her lower her voice. 'Like, do you know him _that_ well that he'd get you hired for this job?' She made a funny face. 'Because blowing up a reactor is serious stuff. We would never do it for money.'

Tifa scanned the corridor behind them: brightly-lit and empty, just how she liked it. 'We grew up together. I was in town, he offered me a job. That's it.'

'Right.' Jessie's unsteady voice undermined her assertion. 'Just, uhh…'

'Jessie, stop talking and get this damn door open!' Barret grumbled.

'Sorry!... One second…'

True to her word a second later the door beeped and slid open. Tifa and another one of Barret's team flew through the doorway, weapons drawn, sweeping over the next room for any danger. And yet the person guarding her flank decided to chat her up, too.

'Cloud's a real good guy.' His revolver swung through the air by its nose, sniffing like a dog's nose at every corner and door. 'He's not the most talkative person around but he's done a lot for us over the years. Our group has been meeting in his bar for a while now. And he's always ready to serve a drink or listen to your problems.' The man relaxed his head and dropped his gun. 'Name's Biggs, by the way.'

'Sure,' Tifa said absentmindedly. After spinning around another corner she let out a coiled breath and sheathed her sword on her back. 'Clear.'

The others jogged up to them. 'Wedge,' Barret said, gesturing to the last unnamed team member and a building map on a wall, 'you're up.'

'Sure!' Wedge ran up and pulled out a handful of paper maps from his pack. 'Just gotta…' He started spinning them. 'Orient... myself…'

After a few more seconds of this Tifa stepped up to him and gripped his shoulder. Without a word she pointed to a distinctive hallway, and then to the display on the wall.

'Oh…' His mouth dropped as he got off his knees and started cross-referencing his map with the wall. 'Thanks. I'm Wedge, by the way. Nice to meet you, Tifa.'

'I heard.'

'Familiar with this place?' Barret asked, resting his minigun on his shoulder.

'Some,' Tifa answered. 'Shinra builds all their reactors as variations from the same base design. See one, you've seen them all.'

'Uh-huh. You know where we are now, Wedge?'

Wedge stepped away from the wall and pocketed the maps. 'I do. And just past this door, we make a right, a right, a left, and a right to get to the reactor's core.'

Barret let a proud smile wash over his face. 'Brilliant as ever!' His team, perhaps sensing what was coming on, instinctively parted to let Barret saunter in between them. 'All of you are doing real fine so far. I couldn't ask for a better team.'

With a muffled sigh Tifa leaned on the nearest wall. This would take a minute.

'And Shinra couldn't ask for a worse enemy.' Barret lifted his gun and pointed it at the closed doorway Wedge had charted their path through. 'Cause we won't be stopped by money or by might. We are Avalanche!' He spun, urging his arms into the air. 'And our day is today! A mighty wave is coming to sweep away Shinra's destructive ways! This planet and its people deserve and need no less. We're going to put a stop to their mako-sucking ways, for the sake of everyone and everything living on Gaia!'

Tifa watched the excitement flicker in the others' eyes. They were hanging on his every word. She, in all honesty, couldn't care less. Mako energy could and had brought about good change; she remembered how much easier life as a kid became when she didn't have to hike down half a mountain to the nearest stream for water and once the new mechanical well was built around the corner from her house. The mako reactor they put in Nibelheim—

White noise, green static cutting and sawing through his mind, struck Tifa, screaming nonsense into her ears. Images of red, black, and green flashed across her visions, blurred, shifting, moving far too fast for her to recognize anything. A pulse of information, overwhelming, _choking_ —

'Tifa?'

She blinked and looked through her hand. It was just her and Barret in the room now. Presumably behind his shades he was scowling at her. 'What, you want the rear now?'

Her hand dropped from her face. 'Sure.'

He grunted. 'Fine. Just don't let any Shinra Grunt shoot me in the back.' He started walking off. 'I'll get you after I get him.'

Tifa took a deep breath and re-gripped her sword as she fell in behind him. 'Noted.'

* * *

The reactor was where Wedge said it'd be, and the ladder down was as sturdy as Biggs' testing foot judged them. Just her and Barret descended a long way to the catwalk at the chamber's bottom. The reactor itself was massive — and suddenly the bomb Tifa was carrying felt very small.

'There.' Barret pointed with his gun-arm towards a sloping section of the far wall once they were on their feet again. 'That's where the reactor should be weakest. Put the bomb there.'

With the bomb tucked under her arm Tifa crossed and padded over to the catwalk's edge and leaned over the strut. With a gentle press she stuck the device to the metal beam and flipped open the control panel. She frowned at what she saw. 'Which one?' She called out. 'Twenty or thirty minutes?'

'Twenty.'

Tifa set the bomb as instructed and rose. 'Never seen two pre-set options for a bomb's timer before.' She eyed Barret. 'Who made this?'

He walked over to the bomb and gave it a once-over. Checking her work. 'You've met her.' Barret slowly turned and paced away. 'She's watching us from above as we speak. Real bright, that Jessie.'

She looked towards the chamber's ceiling. She really couldn't see anyone from this far down. 'Guess so.'

Barret came to a stop; his boots squeaked against the metal flooring. 'Sorry — what'd you say?' He turned on her, gun held out from his hip. 'You _guess_?'

Tifa shrugged. 'I don't know her.'

'That's right.' Like a bear Barret started lumbering back towards her. 'Because you're a Merc who doesn't care about others, right? You're just in it for the money.'

She shifted her weight onto her other foot. 'There a problem?'

' _Heh._ There a problem?' Barret shook his head. 'Course there's a problem. I don't appreciate your attitude. You think we're full of _shit_.'

To be diplomatic Tifa moved her gaze off of him. She watched green mist waft up past the edges of the catwalk, no doubt from the pooling mako far below them. 'What I think about your group has no bearing on your money or my work.'

'That so? And what if you decide you can get your money from Shinra, huh?' Barret jabbed a finger at her. 'What about that, Bigshot SOLDIER?'

'Ex-SOLDIER,' she corrected him. 'If I wanted to I would still be working for them. So no amount of money or perks is going to make me turn.'

'And maybe that's what you _want_ me to think.' Barret suddenly aimed his minigun at her. 'For all I know you're a Shinra spy, leading us into the belly of the beast to get eaten up!'

'Seriously?' She rolled her eyes. 'I'm not that—'

Her head snapped to attention as her wandering gaze saw something flash from one of the chamber's walls. ' _Get down!'_

Air pushed against them as Tifa sprinted across the room and tackled Barret to the floor. Through where he had been standing a huge machine, four and three legs and arms, scythed past and grappled against the reactor's nearest wall. Metal bands spun and sparks scraped into the air as the thing dented and clacked to regain its balance.

'The hell is that!' Barret shouted, scrambling to his feet.

'Shinra bot,' Tifa breathed. 'Military model.'

'And what the hell are we gonna do about it?'

The Buster Sword detached from Tifa's back and swung forward into her grip. 'Kill it.'

' _What?'_ Barret swung his minigun at her. 'We only got twenty minutes — hell, probably nineteen now before this place goes sky high!'

'Then we'll have to be quick.'

The floor shook under their feet as the bot slammed into the catwalk's other end, legs skittering and scraping against the metal.

Tifa spared a glance at Barret. 'Got any Materia?'

' _Hmph_.' Barret leveled his gun. 'Course I do. Let me guess — thunder works well against this thing?'

'As well as anything else.'

' _Alright, then!_ ' Tifa heard the telltale click of his gun starting to spin. ' _Time to die, asshole!_ '

Turrets emerged from the bot's side; with a burst of speed Tifa rushed forward and to her left, blocking bullet fire with her blade. The machine twisted, struggled to keep her in front of its weaponry, and lost track of her as she dropped to the ground and slid past the nearest leg. Her sword flew out to her side and slashed horizontally across the limb's side — but it was tough, and for her effort a counter-jolt went through her arms.

As she finished her slide the ground shook under her. Danger flashed through her senses — she tucked and rolled as one of the bot's legs swung down and impaled the catwalk's metal floor.

 _Damn._ Tifa rushed onto one knee, sword propped to help her stand, but even as the machine struggled to free its leg, its side-turrets swung to her and started shifting. _Damn!_

The room's color shifted — from the highest part of the reactor a thick, curling bolt of lightning swung down and struck the bot in its center. Legs and arms trembled as tiny sparking arcs raced up and down the bot.

' _Yeah!'_ Barret shouted outside of her vision. ' _Take it!_ '

Tifa wound her hands tighter around the Buster Sword's grip. Surging to her feet she rushed forward and circled the machine. Her blade flashed twice: both jittering side-turrets were lopped off and fell harmlessly to the ground. Her sword flashed again, this time aiming for the bot's undercarriage, but suddenly the machine collected itself and leaped into the air. Sword braced in front of her, Tifa was pushed back by a blast of wind.

Her back hit something. 'Got you,' Barret said, steadying her.

'Over there,' Tifa said, eyes jumping away. The machine had jumped to one of the reactor's walls again, metal churning. 'It's going to fire at us with rockets.'

'Oh, don't you worry!' Barret stepped away and planted his feet. 'I've got us covered!'

A deafening noise rode across the room as a hail of rockets were released from every inch of the machine, small and large, black, red, blue, and every size and color in between. In response, Barret threw his entire body behind his minigun and aimed down its length. ' _SUCK ON THIS!'_

A series of heavy shots fired from the gun, each one pulsing smoke and rebounding against his body. Fire-laced, his barrage traveled through the air and plowed into the speeding field of rockets — and a huge explosion ripped through the collective mass.

Both of them shielded themselves as a wave of heat and energy flushed past them. But before they had a chance to cheer the air shifted again and the bot landed back on their catwalk, arms spinning.

'Stay back!' Tifa called as she charged once more. Even from a distance she could tell they were wearing the bot down; chips in its thick outer armor and faltering, crippled guns now littered its front. One such break in its armor caught Tifa's attention as she rolled away from a hail of bullets.

A counter-barrage of gunfire from Barret sprayed the machine's side, and in that moment of its distraction, Tifa sprinted forward, sword dragging on the ground behind her. When she reached it she angled herself sideways and jumped as she swung her weapon over her head in an arc, aiming for the crack in its outer armor. But at the last second her target shifted: her sword sparked against heavy plating and cut away from the machine. She needed to get this thing motionless—

'One more hit!' Tifa shouted, landing and spinning around. 'Hit it with lightning more time!'

She heard his minigun stop firing. 'You don't have to tell me!' Barret roared as he swung his gun into the air and clenched the green-colored Materia in his left hand. Lightning spilled from between his fingers, arced high into the air, and bounded back onto the bot. Like before the entire thing shuddered, overwhelmed by the pure amount of energy surging through it.

Gritting her teeth Tifa spun again: her sword flew across her body and whipped the robot at an exposed point between two legs, catching and sinking into the machine's body, slicing through wire and circuitry with ease; just as the bot started to recover from the lightning strike, it began to fold in on the spot Tifa had cut it.

She wrapped her left hand around the Buster Sword's pommel and threw her entire weight behind the weapon. She fell forward a few more inches and heard the giant metal legs underneath the bot suddenly give out. The catwalk strained as the bulk of their enemy settled onto it and its red glow faded.

Tifa dipped her head; her brown hair fell forward over her shoulders and draped around the handle of her sword. During the battle most of her braids had come undone.

'You alright?' Barret stopped his approach a few feet behind her.

She leaned on her implanted sword for a second before straightening and pulling her weapon free. 'Yeah,' she breathed, slinging the sword back on her back and facing him, 'I'm alright. How long do we have now?'

'Who the hell knows?' Barret kicked one of the bot's legs. 'And I'm not gonna waste time checking. Let's get outta here.'

* * *

'Wait here for a second. I need to check everything's okay up here.'

'What?'

'Just wait.' Above her on the same ladder, Barret shimmed over the platform's edge. The ladder was huge and twice of a pain to climb back up. They were near the top where Barret said his team would be waiting for him, but for some reason he was spooked. Tifa figured it could have been the bot. Not everyone could handle the pure power Shinra packed into their toys.

A more immediate concern was the smoke flooding the chamber; that bot had caused significant damage to the reactor during their fight with all its rocket fire and mad jumping from place to place. Smoke was starting to fill up the upper reaches of the chamber — and her lungs. And there was a weird smell growing in intensity… something very old and familiar...

_You… survived?_

Vaguely green static spread from Tifa's vision into her mind. Her hand came to her forehead and pressed into her skull. Who was that? They… they smelled like this.

She remembered where she was; she leaned harder on the ladder. 'Barret?'

A second — and then a familiar face appeared from the platform. 'You alright?' Jessie asked.

'Come on.' Barret's voice threw down a hand to her. 'The path to the exit is clear, courtesy of Avalanche.'

She grasped it.


	2. Old Friends

Pistons and gears locked and spun underneath them, shaking the freight car from time to time. This did little to deter Wedge’s preening, though.

‘Damn, Jessie!’ he exclaimed, whistling as he looked over the bruise on Jessie’s leg. ‘That’s a big welt!’

Jessie smiled as she shrugged— a sign that either the pain wasn’t too bad or she didn’t want to make it look otherwise. ‘It’s what I’d expect after getting pinned by a metal beam.’ As a show of health she swatted away Wedge and bounced to her feet. ‘But lucky for me… er—’ her smile faltered. ‘...well, Tifa was around, huh?’

‘Lucky you,’ Biggs chimed in, frowning. ‘Boss, you’re sure she’s not on this train?’

In the center of the car Barret leaned his back against the wall, arms folded and head tilted up. He seemed at peace with his shades off and eyes closed, listening to the train’s rumbling around them. ‘Checked every car myself,’ he said softly. ‘She ain’t here.’

‘ _Damn_ ,’ Biggs muttered. ‘So what, she missed the train? She won’t be able to catch another one back to Sector 7 until morning.’

‘ _Poor_ her,’ Barret rolled the kinks out of his neck. ‘Don’t pity her, Biggs. She’s a Merc. She signed up for that life. And sometimes that life is _tough_.’

Jesse linked her hands in front of her. ‘Still— Sector 8 looked pretty bad out there when we left.’ As she paced she pressed her lips together. ‘Just… imagine trying to sleep with all those fires and sires raging around you…’

‘Sleeping on the streets is a fair price to pay for helping to save the planet,’ Barret said in a stern voice.

‘Yeah, but…’ Wedge sat on a crate. His jaw fell into his hands. ‘What if she _isn’t_ sleeping on the streets? What if she got caught?’

Considering how long the pause that followed was, it was clear they had all been thinking of that exact possibility. ‘She don’t know nothing,’ Barret said.

‘She knows our _names_ ,’ Wedge reminded him.

‘And who’s fault is that?!’ One of Barret’s hands gestured broadly towards them, slicing through the air. ‘I told you not to make friends with the Merc, and what do you three do? You adopt her like she’s some sort of stray mutt! If you had just followed what I told y’all to do and kept it _professional_ , then we’d all be sitting here safe and sound, and silent!—’ 

Three bangs came above from somewhere on the freight car’s exterior. Immediately all four of them either stood up or straightened. ‘What was that?’ Jesse breathed.

‘Dunno,’ Barret said in a calm, cool voice. His eyes landed on the car’s doors. ‘One…’ He braced his gun-arm and drew back a leg. ‘Two!... T— _Woahh!_ ’ 

Instead of kicking and firing Barret stumbled backward as a blade-and-body swung through the thrown-open doors— and Tifa, brushing dust from her shoulders, stood and looked at them. ‘Hey.’

‘Uhh… hey,’ Barret murmured. He glanced at the shocked expressions of the others and lowered his gun. ‘Hey… Merc.’

‘How’d you get here?’ Biggs blurted out.

Tifa checked that her Buster Sword was strapped properly to her back before folding her arms. ‘I jumped from a bridge.’

‘Onto this train?’ Jesse asked.

‘Yep.’

‘So cool…’ Wedge muttered.

Barret stepped forward, twisting his neck. ‘Hold on.’ He noted some new marks and scores across Tifa’s metal pauldron. ‘Were you in a fight?’

Tifa blankly eyed him. ‘Sort of. That’s why I jumped from the bridge.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Barret put his sunglasses back on and glared at her. ‘You weren’t followed, were you?’

‘If I am, you’ll be the first to know.’

They let a pause hang in the air for a moment. ‘You better,’ Barret huffed, stalking off down and back the length of the car. ‘We can’t afford any more heat at our place! We’ve had enough close calls as it is. Shoulda just gotten on the train at the station like the rest of us…’

Tifa’s eyes followed Barret pace and rub his gun-arm. For once, she agreed with him. Missing the train at the station had made things harder for her. If only she hadn’t met that annoying flower girl, she would have stayed ahead of that Shinra patrol, then…

Oh, right. 

Tifa pushed aside some straps on her right hip to check if the yellow six-petaled flower was still threaded in place. That stupid girl had tried to pin it to her chest, as if she was going for a walk in the park. What _park_ was there in Midgar to walk in? And even after brushing her off the flower girl wouldn’t leave Tifa alone until she reluctantly took the flower and strapped it to her waist.

She barely charged anything for it either — one Gil! — even though it was the largest flower in her basket. As if it made this one special... Annoying flower girl...

‘Tifa?’ Jesse’s question snapped Tifa out of her reverie. She stepped forward, hands held between a neat fold and a nervous wringing. ‘Can I ask you a question? Us four got to the station pretty directly… we didn’t see much of the surrounding Sector 8 as we dashed to the train.’ Her hands froze. ‘Tell me… how bad was it out there? Were a lot of people… hurt?’

‘Yes.’ Tifa eyed her. ‘What, are you surprised? People usually get hurt when you blow a mako reactor.’

Jesse’s eyes hit the train car’s floor. ‘Yeah… right.’

‘Chin up, Jesse,’ Barret urged, patting her on the shoulder. ‘There’s a reason why Shinra gets people to live on their plates. Might as well be holding them hostage, building their homes next to a plant that’s sucking the life out of the Planet…’

‘Hey.’ Tifa, arms folded, strode between them. ‘The job’s done. When am I getting paid?’

Barret made a face. ‘Right. Gil makes a Merc’s world go round.’ He held Tifa’s displeased look. ‘You’ll get your money once we get back to Sector 7. Cloud’ll sort you out.’

‘He better.’ The sword on Tifa’s back came inches from banging against a metal crate as she turned and walked towards the other end of the train car and exited into the adjoining one. If she wasn’t getting paid now, she’d put as much distance between her and them until.

* * *

‘She’s cold. _Distant,_ really.’

Biggs lightly slapped Wedge’s cheeks. ‘Hey. Stop staring at Tifa. It isn’t polite.’

‘Oh, come on— look at how full this train is!’ Wedge made an exaggerated spread of his arms as best he could considering how cramped it was. His head nudged rightward, looking down the passenger car’s clogged aisle. After causing a few passenger cars to empty — they _did_ look suspicious — they had blended well into the last of the night’s commuter crowds. ‘How is she going to know I’m looking at her from all the way over here?’

‘Don’t SOLDIERs have super-enhanced senses or whatever? You know the expression “eyes in the back of your head”: in her case she might actually have them.’ Biggs groaned as the seconds dragged and his advice went unfollowed. ‘Why are you even looking at her, anyway?’

‘I’m just _curious_.’ Wedge’s easygoing face turned back to Biggs. ‘Cloud _never_ mentioned Tifa before this week and we’ve known him for how long? Three years? Four?’

‘It has been a while,’ Biggs agreed. ‘But some people have things in their past they don’t want to talk about, you know? You think I’m running around telling people I grew up an orphan in a schoolhouse?’

‘It’s just weird. He didn’t even tell us how they knew each other and yet he was asking us to trust her on an op.’ He leaned in and lowered his voice. ‘And I kinda agree with Barret. I’m not sure women SOLDIERs exist…’

‘Well, she looks like one. Is that enough to overcome your bias?’

‘Woah, where’s _that_ coming from? I’ve just never seen one, that’s all.’

‘And why is that?’ Biggs swung a finger at Wedge. ‘ _I_ bet you were never looking around for one before, and because of that you’ve never noticed one.’

Wedge made an uneasy grin. ‘What? Nooo.’ He glanced away again. ‘I feel like I’d notice a SOLDIER dressed like— oh.’ 

‘What?’

‘She’s looking at me.’

‘What? Stop looking.’

‘Can’t. She’s walking over now.’

‘Wedge!’ Biggs suppressed a moan, checked for himself, and threw his head over his shoulder. ‘Come on, man…’

The last of the crowd of people near parted. ‘Hey.’ Tifa stopped next to them. ‘Why were you looking at me?’

‘I…’ Wedge fumbled. ‘I, uh…’

‘Stop looking at me.’

‘Ehh— Eh, right! Of course!’ Wedge even saluted. ‘Sure thing, Mrs. Merc!’

Her understated glare lingered on him for an instant, as if actually _judging_ his gesture, but then the crowd pressed back in and Tifa turned and left them. After a few seconds Wedge let out a long sigh.

Biggs punched him in the shoulder. ‘Listen to me more, will you?’

* * *

‘Hey.’

Tifa’s shoulders rose slightly at the familiar voice. She rolled back into her seat and looked up. ‘Can you follow me for a second?’ Jesse asked with a calm smile. ‘I need to show you something. It’ll be super quick before we arrive.’

They were close? Tifa hadn’t known that. ‘Alright.’

She let herself be motioned onto her feet and led to the end of the car. Near the door to the next section of the train Jesse hooked left and drew up to a display. ‘Look here.’ She tapped a few times and pulled up a top-down grid map. Even as a model, this city was massive.

‘This is Midgar.’ She pointed to a red line bending around the map’s center. ‘And that’s us and the train we’re on. See how we’re circling this center structure? That’s the Shinra HQ at the center of Midgar.’

Her finger tapped a few times for emphasis as she looked back at Tifa. ‘That massive building is the heart of the city. All transportation, power, and other services eventually run past there. The trains usually pass under it on their routes. It’s then when Shinra do their ID checks.’

‘Right,’ Tifa said. ‘Standard security procedure,’ she remembered. Check the trains for any unverified IDs. Apprehend those who don’t appear in the system… odd. She would have thought SOLDIERs weren’t trained to do and know the basic security stuff, but she guessed she had forgotten — you needed to walk before you could run.

She refocused her attention on Jesse, who seemed to be waiting for her to say something more. ‘I assume we’ve already cleared a checkpoint if we’re close to Sector 7, then?’

Jesse nodded with a grin. ‘Bingo. The IDs I passed around at the mission’s beginning did the trick.’ She leaned in. ‘I just wanted to let you know that as long as I’m around, you won’t have to worry about getting caught without one. I got you, alright?’

Tifa stifled a frown. ‘...Alright.’

‘Great.’ Jessie pinched closed the map of Midgar and propped herself off the wall with one elbow, hand on her head. ‘Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can chat.’

One of Tifa’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Chat?’

‘Yeah, chat. For example: is this your first time to Midgar?’

Tifa’s head shifted left. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘I notice you keep looking around.’

‘I have been to Midgar before, although it was a long time ago. Didn’t go on the trains then.’ Tifa’s attention flitted away for a second. ‘There are a lot of people traveling around.’

‘It’s impossible to get around the city without the trains if you live in the slums,’ Jesse noted with a wry expression. ‘Everyone is reliant on Shinra in Midgar, whether you live on or below the plates.’

‘Sorta strange.’

‘Hmm?’

Red light strobed through the train, grid-like. ‘The check,’ Jessie informed her, watching the scan move down the train. ‘We’re safe.’

Tifa regarded her. ‘I was saying it’s sorta strange that your group is trying to mess with Shinra and make everyone’s lives harder.’

‘…I never said that it was _good_ that people relied on Shinra,’ Jesse argued. ‘Especially when Shinra is slowly killing the planet.’

‘Still doesn’t change the fact that you’re making people’s lives harder.’

Jesse stared at her: she kept her eyes on her as the train hitched and slowed underneath them. ‘Let’s talk about this another time, okay?’ Nimbly, Jesse stepped away and slid past the crowd exiting the car. ‘See you at the bar.’

* * *

The station was lively considering it was well after midnight. It seemed like because this was the last train for the night a lot of people rode it. Tifa watched as the crowd slowly filtered onto the platform and broke-off into so many different groups. Fathers and mothers, children, couples, and friends all started heading into the heart of the slums, all chatting and laughing under the glow of the yellow-green mako street lamps that dotted the ground. 

It was obvious where Shinra’s involvement here began and ended. The station and its platform was made up of solid steel track and set concrete; in every other direction, packed dirt paths and flimsy shanty buildings covered the land, making mazes underneath the near-dark sun lamps hanging from the Sector 7 plate far above.

Tifa waited on the platform for a moment, staring up at the gray steel sky. They couldn’t see the sun here, could they? She wondered what it was like to grow up in a place like this. 

As she wandered into the slums far behind the crowds, she saw more of what she saw on the platform, just in worse lighting. A few kids jostling to poke her Buster Sword followed her for a time before a harsh glare scared them off. Among the sheet metal and dirt and dark alleys and passed out drunks, there were too many kids out with too much time on their hands too late at night. Maybe it was the sky, Tifa thought. Maybe when you couldn’t see the rest of the world you got restless, stayed up, fidgeted around, made trouble.

Midgar certainly wasn’t anything like Nibelheim. Now that was a place where _too_ much sky and space made even the adults lazy.

As she stepped out into a large open space — perhaps this area’s version of a square — her attention was caught by a large, boxish tower looming over the slums. From what she remembered from when she was here earlier in the day, this was the Sector 7 Pillar which held up the plate above them. Hundreds of meters of metal, reaching into the gray sky like a spear...

‘Hey! Tifa!’

Her attention swept down, across the square — and there it was. On a curved wooden banner _Seventh Heaven_ was painted above the entrance to a square building sitting on a porch raised above the ground. At the bottom of the stairs leading to the door, he was resting on the first step, his hand ruffling the hair of a small girl sitting patiently with him. 

She was still getting used to seeing him so much older. Though his eyes were still the same shade of startling clear blue, his lean muscles had filled out his lanky frame and his hair, cut shorter than the shoulder-length braid she’d last seen him have, jutted out in cuts and curls like soft-colored lightning striking through a warm night sky.

Cloud waved at her with his other leather-bounded hand. As he stretched to do so Tifa saw his white tank-top and black half pants catch under the light. ‘Come on, Tifa! Over here!’

She set out across the ground. Oddly enough the girl seemed to perk up as she approached. ‘Daddy?’

‘Marlene!’ Out of nowhere Barret strode past Tifa and swung his arm down, scooping up the girl and placing her on his shoulder. ‘How’s my little girl doing?’ He chatted as he started climbing the stairs towards the bar. ‘You eat yet?... No?... Then I’ll set something on the stove for you…’

Tifa stared at Barret’s receding back. ‘He has a kid?’ She asked, looking to Cloud.

‘You’re surprised?’

‘A little.’

Cloud half-smiled and gave a shake of his head. ‘Come on.’ He gestured up the stairs. ‘We can talk inside.’

* * *

As it turns out Seventh Heaven was more than a bar. Though Tifa knew Barret and his team liked to hang out here, she hadn’t known they had a secret sub-basement underneath a pinball machine. From her seat at the bar she stared suspiciously as that machine and its section of the floor rose back up and clicked into place with the rest of the room.

‘Could you give me a moment?’ Cloud’s voice drew her attention forward. He was bent down, shuffling around a few bottles underneath the counter. ‘I need to take Marlene’s dinner off the stove.’

Tifa glanced at the wall clock to her right. ‘Isn’t it a little late for someone her age to be up, let alone eating dinner?’

‘Well, she wanted to stay up,’ Cloud said as he crossed to the other side of the bar where the fridge, cookware, and stove was. ‘And it’s not like she would have gone to bed if I told her to. She always gets too excited to sleep when Barret is out on a mission.’ Cloud finished ladling the mashed potatoes and stew into a bowl. ‘And when she gets excited, she gets hungry.’

‘That’s why you were waiting outside with her? Waiting on Barret?’

‘Partly.’ Cloud turned to Tifa. ‘Okay; I’m going to run Marlene’s dinner to her room.’

‘You’ve said that already.’

‘Is there anything you want while you wait? A drink, maybe?’

Tifa wasn’t sure if Cloud knew that alcohol did nothing for her: her mako-enhanced metabolism neutralized it like any toxin that entered her body. But the idea of having something to do with her hands while waiting appealed to her. ‘Sure.’

Cloud’s stride and snatch of a bottle as he tipped it and a few other things into a mixer, shook it all together, and poured a neat glass and slid it across the bar startled Tifa. He was dextrous, even when wearing somewhat bulky fingerless leather gloves. But he failed to notice her surprise as he was already taking a bowl of food further back into the building.

Besides seeing Cloud as older, it was odd to see him as a bartender. She looked down at the glass between her hands — the drink was carmine, like a fading sunset. She pictured Cloud’s face in it — as he was as a kid — morphed and distorted by the bubbles wisping and sloshing through the drink.

Her mind was drawn back to the reactor. She was sure now that there was something familiar about it. Had she been there before when last she’d been in Midgar? But… no. It wasn’t something specific. Just a feeling or a memory associated with that type of place... or that smell. That piercingly sour smell of mako. Midgar was full of it: you could even get a hint of it from the lamps strewn around the slums. She just wished… that she could remember… what she was doing in Midgar the last time she was...

Tifa sighed as her head dipped and fingers pinched the bridge of her nose. A headache was coming on...

‘Tifa?’

Her hand fell from her face. ‘Hm?’

She looked up; Cloud was staring at her with a strange bent to his face. ‘You looked out of it for a second there.’

‘I was thinking,’ Tifa said, before tightening her grip on her drink and sipping it. ‘...what’s-her-name got food?’

‘Marlene,’ Cloud corrected her. ‘And yes, she has.’

Tifa took another sip of her drink. ‘Are you her parent, too?’ She asked, setting the glass down.

‘Huh?’ Cloud leaned back and crossed his arms, hands and knuckles flexing. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘You’re feeding her.’

‘I help out whenever Barret’s not around,’ Cloud said. He flicked a strand of hair out of his face. ‘She does live here, after all. Barret, too.’

‘Ah.’ Tifa’s cool eyes ran across the bar. ‘Now it makes sense.’

‘What does?’

‘Why you have a terrorist cell in your basement.’

Cloud made a face — he wasn’t actually sure how to respond. Tifa’s tone was unreadable to him. Was she making a joke? Was she serious? ‘Um… yes, that’s one reason.’

Tifa lifted her drink and finished it. ‘Any others?’

‘Yeah. I also believe in what AVALANCHE is trying to do. Not to mention they’re all my friends and I want to support them.’

‘Huh.’ Tifa stared down at the empty glass. ‘I see.’

Cloud waited for Tifa to go on, considering the awkward pause she created. She didn’t. ‘Well,’ he finally said, ‘before we get to business—’

‘Hey.’

‘What?’

‘Wait—’ Tifa fumbled with something at her hip and held it out to him. ‘Here.’

‘Hm?’ Cloud’s eyes landed on a yellow, six-petaled flower. ‘Is that… real?’

‘Yes.’

‘...’ Cloud carefully accepted it by its stem. ‘Huh.’

‘What?’

‘You never see flowers in the slums… real ones, I mean.‘ Cloud looked at her. ‘Where’d you get this?’

‘Someone gave it to me.’ Tifa pushed the empty glass down the bar. ‘Ask her.’

‘Well... thank you, Tifa.’ He strode to one end of the bar and placed it carefully on a barrel. ‘I’ll make sure to get a cup for it once we’re done.’

Tifa straightened in her seat. ‘Once we’re done?’

‘Yeah.’ Cloud wiped his hands clean on his hips and leaned on the counter a few feet to Tifa’s left, head turned in her direction. ‘It’s time we discuss your pay, among other things.’

She blinked. ‘Right. My money.’

‘Your money,’ Cloud echoed. His mouth twisted. ‘Now, you, see… there’s a bit of an issue with that.’

* * *

‘Everyone…’ Barret, dark brown eyes freed of his shades and bright, lifted his beer-filled mug into the air. ‘...Damn good job!’

Jesse, Wedge, and Biggs did the same with their glasses and clinked them. ‘Avalanche!’ 

‘Cheers!’ Leaning back in his chair Barret tipped his hand back and took a swig. Nothing quite matched a post-op celebratory drink, even if they only had beer. If the mission had wrapped up a little earlier maybe they could have convinced Cloud to mix some drinks with the harder stuff behind the bar counter. But beer was fine. He took another big swig. Beer was more than fine.

His eyes glanced at a nearby computer monitor. Judging by the time Marlene would be asleep. Which meant he could drink out of this mug as slow and long as he pleased. Just the one mug, though.

‘Hey…’ 

Three pairs of eyes swiveled back to Wedge. ‘Also…’ he went on, ‘...to Tifa, too!’

‘...to Tifa, what?’ Biggs asked, setting his drink down on the cardboard boxes next to his cardboard box seat.

‘Cheers… to Tifa, for helping us with the mission…’ Wedge frowned into the floor. ‘C’mon guys… don’t make me feel weird.’

‘Think you did that to yourself, buddy,’ Biggs teased.

Jesse raised her drink again. ‘You know? Cheers to Tifa. If it weren’t for her, I’d be buried under a reactor’s worth of rubble.’ She took a big glug. ‘So cheers,’ she said, wiping her mouth.

‘Cheers!’ Biggs and Wedge echoed, raising their glasses and doing as she did.

‘Hmph.’ Barret let his head rove across his shoulders. After a moment he shifted forward and set his drink down on the wide metal table in the room’s center.

‘Problem, boss?’

‘Problem?’ Barret looked at Biggs and shook his head. ‘No. No problem.’

‘Thinking, then?’ Jesse asked.

He smiled without showing any teeth. ‘Thinking, yes,’ Barret admitted. ‘Just that Merc… she’s an interesting one.’

Wedge bounced as he readjusted his seating position. ‘How so?’

‘She don’t believe in a single thing that we’re doing.’ Barret’s hand cut through the air. ‘The planet, Shinra, mako… all of it means nothing to her. You can tell it by how she looks at us. Thinks we’re a bunch of crazy radicals, blowing up shit for fun.’ He tossed his head, half-frowning. ‘Misguided little fool. Can’t see the lies in front of her eyes. I bet we could spend years twisting her arm and never reach her through that thick skull of hers.’

‘Oh.’ Jesse slumped into her chair. ‘When you put it like that, maybe she’s not—’

‘And she’s got a pretty strange story,’ Barret went on. ‘Because I’ve _never_ so much as _heard_ of a woman SOLDIER, much less _seen_ one. Mind you, I’ve never seen a SOLDIER in action, either… but the way she fights you’d think she’s some kind of mega-monster lab experiment!’

‘Dude, I told you!’ Wedge said, elbowing Biggs. ‘I don’t think women SOLDIERs exist!’

‘Whatever,’ Biggs said quickly.

‘In any case,’ Barret’s voice cut through them, ‘I’ll admit… She did a damn good job on the mission.’ Barret folded his arms and sank back into his chair. ‘Wouldn’t mind hiring her again, actually, if we could afford it…’

‘We can’t afford her?’ Jesse asked.

‘Well— we _could_ , if I pushed it,’ Barret said. ‘But because his friend was such an unknown, Cloud agreed to pay her bill for this mission.’ A suppressed smile stretched Barret’s face. ‘Thing is… I’m not sure he’s got the Gil for that, and if I’ve read that Merc right...’

* * *

‘Tifa!’ Footsteps pounded on the wooden floor as Cloud rushed out from behind the bar. ‘Stop! Wait!’

‘You’re wasting my time,’ Tifa said in a flat voice. Her gaze was set on the door. Her feet, too. ‘If you can’t pay me, I’m going somewhere else for work.’

‘But that’s _not_ what I’m saying!’ Cloud shouted. ‘I— _hold on!_ ’ He sprinted across the bar and blocked the double doors with his body. ‘Just hold on,’ he said in a forcibly calm voice. ‘I’m not saying I can’t pay you, _period._ I’m saying I just can’t pay you _now_.’

‘Then when are you going to pay me, Cloud?’ Tifa shot back, glaring at him. ‘And will it be before or after you realize you hired me for a job you couldn’t pay for?’

The seconds dragged as Cloud’s face sank. ‘…Well…’

‘Unbelievable,’ Tifa repressed an urge to grab her Buster Sword. ‘Did you think the money I’d be owed would just _appear_ out of thin air?’

‘No!’ Cloud defended himself. ‘I was… _hopeful_ I’d have the money before tonight, but even so, I know I can pay you by the end of tomorrow.’ He clasped his hands in front of him and held them towards Tifa. ‘I _promise_ you that.’

Tifa continued to stare him down— and weigh whether to draw her sword. ‘How?’

‘The bar and AVALANCHE have a little bit of a side business. We sell air filters to a bunch of local businesses,’ Cloud explained. ‘Tomorrow, I’m going to deliver them… and pick up payment. Understand?’

‘You’re going to pay me with 1500-Gils-worth of air filter money?’

‘That’s the idea.’

Cloud could tell by her posture that Tifa was ready to bolt out the door. Even her _pretending_ to consider his offer seemed to be more than she could stomach. It was clear that he was going to lose her and she would walk out of the bar and who knew how many years would pass until they met again, and... 

He had questions— too many. He wouldn’t allow that.

‘I can throw in something else to sweeten the deal,’ he said.

‘That so?’

‘I _promise_ I can get you more work in the slums.’

Tifa let her disbelief fold her arms. ‘ _Really?_ I didn’t have much luck on my own earlier today.’

‘That’s because you— well, you lack, a, uh…’

‘What?’

‘I’ll be with you,’ Cloud landed on. ‘People know me. If I vouch for you, they’ll give you work. Barret took you on because of me, after all.’

Tifa considered this. ‘Uh-huh…’

‘I’ll even throw in a free room for you to sleep in at the apartment I live in. You… don’t have somewhere to sleep right now, right?’

‘No,’ Tifa confirmed. ‘Just arrived today, after all.’

‘Right.’ Cloud let out a heavy exhale. One thing at a time. He had to put everything out of his mind and just… communicate with the person in front of him. For both himself and her.

‘...’

‘Tifa?’

He could picture it. Her saying no and pushing him aside. Pure luck had sent her here. Nothing bound her to this place, just as nothing bound her to Nibelheim seven years ago, and nothing he said or could say would change things. She would move on if she wanted, from here, from him—

‘I want to be paid for collecting the filters, too.’

Cloud’s eyes sprung open. Tifa looked at him as if she was still considering whether to cut him down to leave. But she had said it.

‘Of course,’ he said, relief washing through him. ‘We’ll settle all that tomorrow.’ He extended his hand. ‘So do we have a deal?’

Tifa frowned at the hand, but shook it all the same. ‘Fine.’

A small smile spread across Cloud’s face. He wasn’t even aware of it. ‘Great. Let me show you the apartment, then.’ He walked backward and pushed through the bar’s doors with his shoulders. ‘I think you’ll enjoy the view.’

‘It’s pitch-black out here.’

‘Not now. In the morning. It’ll be… something to see.’

And so they waded into the night. Above them the plate was dark and asleep, and yet here on the dead ground the people of the slums gathered around the dim green-white lamps and laughed and drank as well as any other place in the world.


	3. Life on the Ground Floor

_ She was standing on a bridge over a green and blue abyss. Below the air was thick and cloying with laden energy and sour-smelling gas. There was a building to her right, more bridge to her left, but she felt trapped in place as sound and color drained away into the chasm below. All was gray and silent and dead like the metal under her feet except the green and blue and empty. _

_ Her eyes kept searching… Searching. Within the abyss, she had to find something. With one hand she pressed and felt her abdomen, feeling for a lip or tear where she could plunge her hand through and seize it. Down there… there had to be someone there. _

_ Color swirled and blew up, across her, like a spring wind. Her thoughts swirled like ash. Will you be the one to change the world? She saw — felt the abyss pull away. Will you be there? At the...  _ **_Reunion?_ ** _... _

Bedsheets flew as Tifa lurched and gripped the handle of her Buster Sword leaning against the wall next to her bed, unbraided hair spilling across her sweating face, breathing frantic.

She waited. Seconds passed. Conscious, she forced her fingers to let go of her sword and settled back into bed. She was in her room, she realized. ‘Just a dream…’

Judging by the slant and intensity to the light shining through the blinds to the room's sole window, the morning was a few hours old. After a deep breath Tifa sat up, running her hands through her knotted hair. She wondered if a shower so soon after last night’s might make her feel better—

‘Tifa?’ Knocks accentuated Cloud’s voice coming from outside. ‘Hey, are you up?’

Her hands dropped from her head and pressed into the mattress. ‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ Cloud’s muffled voice suddenly sounded relieved. ‘I was worried that— well, doesn’t matter.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Tifa swung her legs off her bed. Her boots, she unhappily remembered, were next to the door, not her bed. ‘What time is it?’

‘About half past nine. You slept for a while.’

‘And you?’

‘I woke up earlier, but don’t worry about it. I had to run a few errands before we set out. The bar is closed for lunch today, so take as much time as you need getting ready.’

She must have been more tired after last night than she thought. Tifa rose out of bed and stood. ‘I’m ready to go. Just give me a minute and we can talk face-to-face.’

True to her word, dressed in her purple shirt, leather cinch, metal shoulderguard, and black combat pants with her hair thrown into a quick tie behind her, a minute later Tifa stepped outside into the day’s light. On their shared second-floor open-air hallway, Cloud was on his side leaning on the metal railing, looking out at the slums before them. He glanced at her, nodded, and motioned her to join him.

Though she didn’t lean like he did, she did step up to the railing.

‘Crazy sight, right?’ Cloud asked.

In a way, yes. Tifa was surprised just how unending and topographical the slums looked during the day. There were buildings rising and falling onto each other, sprouting from every possible place like hills fighting over a countryside. It just went on and on underneath the towering gray plates held in the sky above them.

‘I still haven’t gotten used to it, to be honest,’ Cloud said, drawing her attention back to him. He was looking out with a muted expression on his lips. ‘It’s been years since I came to Midgar, but the size of this place still overwhelms me sometimes.’

He almost seemed… Tifa couldn’t find the word. And then what she saw left as some tempered cheeriness found his smile. ‘Nothing like Nibelheim, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Way too big. And the air isn’t as fresh, either.’

Tifa turned back and squinted at a far-off part of the slums. ‘Must be all the mako use.’

‘You’d be surprised by how many people here still burn old fuel like coal and oil.’ Cloud pushed off of the railing. ‘In any case, we should get going, yeah?’ He stepped past her and started descending the stairs to the ground level. ‘Filters to deliver and contracts to find, and all. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.’

* * *

They hadn’t even gotten halfway down the stairs before Cloud’s words rang true.

‘ _ You swindled me, you old hag! _ ’ As they rounded a landing they saw a muscled and buzzcut thug in a sleeveless leather jacket shaking his fist at an older woman — a thoroughly unimpressed older woman — leaning forward on the apartment building’s ground floor railing. Beside her a dog was barking incessantly. ‘My room had no AC, no running water, and no working bathroom! When I woke up in the middle of the night I had to crawl outside and pee on the scrap pile behind this building!’

The woman rolled her eyes. ‘I told you all this yesterday before you rented it for the night. You were just too  _ drunk _ to remember,’ Marle stated dryly. ‘And you’re going to have to compensate my neighbor for peeing on his salvage.’

‘Don’t you know who I  _ am _ ?’ The thug clenched his arms, puffing up his tattoos. ‘If the Don ever heard about this—  _ Shut this dog up before I do it myself!’ _ He roared.

Marle wriggle d her nose . ‘Ughck.’ She looked away as Cloud and Tifa approached. ‘Oh, perfect! Do me a favor, Cloud?’ She sneered at the thug. ‘Take care of this one, will you? I’ve had my fill of rude guests for the week.’

Cloud stopped and eyed the man. ‘Sure, Marle.’

‘Oh?’ The thug held out his chest as he turned to Cloud. ‘You got something to say, spiky-hair?’

Behind him Tifa flexed her fingers, ready to leap for her sword’s grip. ‘Cloud, I—’

‘No, no.’ Cloud dismissed her with a held hand. He began to stretch his arms and legs. ‘I’ve got this.’

‘ _Oh?_ _You wanna fight!?_ ’ The man began bouncing on his legs. ‘Come on, then! I’ll beat you bloody!’

Cloud lifted his leather-bound knuckles and narrowed his eyes. ‘Go on.’

‘ _ Hyaagh!’  _ The thug roared, charging forward behind his right fist. His entire arm went taut as he threw it forward in an arc, aimed at Cloud’s chest— and Cloud shifted like water and grabbed the man’s arm at the elbow and shoulder and threw him to the ground. 

The thug grunted as his stomach crashed to the dirt. ‘Huh?... Why you!...’ Fuming, he rolled and quickly rose and charged again, swinging wildly. Cloud’s hair twisted as he nimbly avoided a barrage, then hooked his right arm and slammed a punch into the crook of the thug’s right elbow, jarring the limb. As the man started to holler from pain Cloud stepped in and slammed his fist against the left side of his jaw, knocking him to the ground — out cold.

Tifa’s eyes widened in surprise. That was unexpected.

Marle leaned over the railing and spat on the man. ‘Good riddance.’ She turned and bowed her head. ‘Thank you for that, Cloud.’

‘Not a problem. Need me to move him somewhere?’ 

‘I can handle it from here. I’ll pay some local boys to drop him off in a bar in Wall Market before he wakes up.’

Cloud drew back his arms and unclenched his fists. ‘You’re not worried about his friends showing up later?’

‘The Neighborhood Watch isn’t just for show, you know,’ Marle said. ‘If a group of Don’s thugs ever tried to shakedown an honest business like mine, they’d step in.’ Marle tutted to change the topic. ‘Now, who is this?’

‘This was the friend I was talking to you about, Marle,’ Cloud said, stepping aside. ‘This is Tifa.’

Marle turned her scrutinizing eyes on her. She seemed unimpressed. ‘This is Tifa? She looks like a military brat.’

‘Ex-Shinra, for the record,’ Tifa said cooly.

‘Well, good!’ Marle wagged a finger at her. ‘We don’t need any more trouble around here— and especially around my apartments!’ She grinned at Cloud. ‘Hah!’

Tifa shifted and folded her arms. ‘So… you’re Marle?’

‘I am.’ She regally lifted her head. ‘Tell me— how was my room? Comfy? Cozy?’

‘I slept.’

‘Hmph.’ Marle frowned at Cloud. ‘Not much of a talker, is she?’

He half-smiled and looked away before Tifa could glance over.

‘In any case,’ Marle turned back to Tifa, ‘Cloud’s filled me in that you’ll be here for a little while. Keep in mind that the only reason I’m giving you a room rent-free is because I see Cloud as my own flesh-and-blood grandson. So— if you upset him, you’ll regret it.’

‘Wasn’t planning on it,’ Tifa said.

‘That’s what they  _ usually _ say.’ Marle glanced again at Cloud. ‘But I see you and Cloud have places to be. So for now I’ll take your word.’

‘Thank you again, Marle,’ Cloud said, dipping his head. He prompted Tifa with a look.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Yes, yes.’ Marle shooed them away with her hands. ‘Get going!’

They walked a good distance away from the apartments when Tifa unexpectedly walked in front of Cloud. He might have been seeing things— but she might have been smiling.

‘You’re a capable fighter.’

‘I’ve had some instruction over the years,’ Cloud said. ‘And you pick up some things after living a few years on the ground floor.’

‘Ground floor?’

‘It’s what some people around here call the slums.’

‘I see. Do fights with that kind of thug happen a lot, then?’

Cloud shrugged. ‘Dunno. Maybe. Not really noteworthy enough to remember them. Some people just need to have some sense knocked into them. It’s the same sometimes at the bar.’

‘So you’ve punched a lot of people?’

‘Sure, I guess.’

‘Does that make you some kind of... slum hero?’ Tifa asked, curious.

‘Not at all.’ Cloud turned and started walking again. ‘Like everyone else I’m just trying to get by.’

* * *

In the end Cloud was right; it  _ was _ a busy day. Maybe Tifa should have expected as much from what she saw from her apartment, but step-by-step she learned just how sprawling the Sector 7 Slums were. More than that, she learned how  _ demanding  _ people here could be. They’d have an errand that took you from one end of the slum to the other, again and again. Her and Cloud walked  _ unendingly _ . Normally Tifa wouldn’t have an issue with that, but there was a difference between walking unencumbered across a wide-open plain and jostling through narrow, junk-filled avenues and between people, all the while keeping an eye on where her sword was to make sure she didn’t cut every random jerk who bumped into her. She must have elbowed twenty people today. And twice as many surely elbowed her. They were lucky none of them collided with her blade.

It certainly didn’t feel worth it, despite Cloud’s periodic encouragements. When she wasn’t feeling like a delivery toadie for filters, she felt like a two-bit clown, clearing rats from a back alley or chasing down a feral dog in the scrapyard. Granted, the people giving her these jobs were impressed when she solved their problems in no time flat; apparently they were  _ incapable _ of finding cats or chasing a simple drake out of an abandoned warehouse. But even with their appreciation, Tifa could shake the feeling that her skills were being wasted here.

Still, it wasn’t a terrible day. As promised Cloud scrounged together her 1,500 Gil from the filter deliveries. They had checked in on or run into some familiar faces. Jesse, the girl from last night, practically bumped into them on her way to her  stage hand job in a theater in the Sector 8 Slums , though she was already late and didn’t have more than a few moments to talk. Biggs and Wedge, Tifa found out, helmed the local Neighborhood Watch group, which was squirreled away on the second floor of a weapons shop. Suspiciously, however, they didn’t seem to be  _ watching _ anything while Tifa and Cloud had been there. All they did... was shoot the breeze.

Admittedly Tifa did not enjoy speaking with them, but it was a needed change from the walking.

The same could be said for all the grateful people. Maybe Tifa had made their lives a little bit easier, but this was a slum. There was only so much either she or they could do. She didn’t understand how Cloud kept himself in a good mood through it all.

As they walked along a main avenue Tifa grew curious: she stopped and glanced at the massive sunlamps hanging from the plate above, then at the edges of Midgar to her left, where you could just see the sunlight coming from the outside world. The day’s color was darkened yellow and waning— it must have been later in the afternoon that she thought.

‘Something wrong?’

‘Hm?’ Tifa met Cloud’s gaze from over his shoulder. ‘Nothing. I was wondering how late it was.’

‘Oh?’ Cloud turned fully to her. ‘Is time flying?’

‘Not really.’

They were stopped in the middle of a fairly open throughway with an atypically small flow of people walking up and down it. After a second more of staring Cloud crossed his arms and edged his head an inch forward. ‘Is there something you want to do to make time fly?’

‘What?’

‘To have fun,’ Cloud said. ‘I’m asking you: what do you do for fun, Tifa?’

‘Fun?’ Tifa repeated, disliking the word. ‘I’m not thinking about that. We’re working.’

Cloud spread open his palms. ‘Are we? Because I delivered the last of the filters at the last place we stopped at. What else do you have to do?’

‘We have to kill that drake in the old factory, right?’

‘We already did.’

‘The other one.’

‘There is no other one.’

‘Then we need to finish finding those cats.’

‘Did that, too. We found all three.’

‘There were only three? I thought there were more.’

‘You don’t know Betty, so you wouldn’t have known, I guess.’ Very seriously, he said, ‘She has three cat friends.’

Tifa rolled her eyes. ‘Right. Important.’

‘So, anyway, we’re done.’ Cloud dropped his arms and stepped closer to Tifa. ‘Which is why I was asking you before what you do to have fun.’

‘Hold on. If you knew we were done, where were you leading us?’

‘Back to the bar. Now answer my question!’ Cloud said for a final time. ‘What do you do for fun, Tifa?’

She had no idea how to answer this stupid question. Not to mention she had no desire to. But Cloud… such an annoying… ‘I like… to... ‘ Tifa turned her head so she wouldn’t frown at him. ‘This is stupid, Cloud.’

‘Come on. Just name one thing.’

‘Silence.’

His face sank. ‘I was thinking, maybe more like an activity, or—’

Tifa held up a hand. ‘Wait — it’s silent.’ Her eyes scanned the area. ‘Where is everyone?’

Both of their heads whipped to the right as a door slammed open and a small crowd— where everyone on the avenue had gone, apparently— parted, letting three Shinra soldiers push and drag a blindfolded red-haired man into view.

‘ _ Get off me, assholes!’  _ the man squirmed in their grips, torso bouncing around. ‘ _ I didn’t do  _ **_shit_ ** _!!’ _

One of the soldiers swayed as he pushed their captive forward. ‘Settle down, punk!’

‘Or what, huh!?’ More shoving led the group of three past Tifa and Cloud. ‘You’re gonna put another blindfold on me? Screw you Shinra clowns!’

Tifa stepped aside as the crowd swept past her, still pulled by interest in the incident. But no one moved to follow the three Shinra grunts and their captive.

‘Do you know what’s going on?’ Tifa sought out the voice: Cloud had started talking to a woman.

‘Apparently someone stole some blasting agent from a Shinra warehouse.’ The woman’s face creased with concern. ‘So public security started asking questions, and, well, you know how Johnny gets when pressed…’

Cloud nodded. ‘I do.’

‘Must be because of the reactor explosion,’ a nearby man chimed in. ‘Shinra’s been on edge all over Midgar, from what I heard. They think there’s going to be another attack…’

‘Okay. Thank you for the info.’ Cloud froze for an instant, drawing his arms against his body, and shook his head. Then he peered at Tifa. ‘We have to help him.,’ he said, walking back.

‘Is he Avalanche?’

Cloud looked around and drew closer. ‘No,’ he said in a quiet voice so they wouldn’t be overheard. ‘He doesn’t know what we do. But like a lot of other people in the slums he has his suspicions, and, well… he’s a talker.’

‘So he’ll talk you and the others into a Shinra cell?’

‘More importantly, he’s innocent,’ Cloud stressed. ‘Though… I’m also thinking about that.’

‘Then let’s go.’

Cloud’s eyes narrowed. Tifa looked tense. Was bringing her along a good idea? He wasn’t sure. ‘...Actually, I should probably go alone. I’ve already pulled you through a long day.’

‘I’m going,’ Tifa said. ‘You helped me today. Least I could do is return the favor.’

‘...Alright.’ Cloud gestured at the alley the Shinra soldiers had forced Johnny down. ‘This way, then.’

* * *

After worming through a rusting fence and edging around some walls, they settled behind a final piece of cover, crouching against a broken-down truck. Snippets of conversation and Johnny’s cursing floated over towards them. None of it sounded encouraging.

Cloud dipped his head back behind the truck. ‘Alright. Here’s the plan. You distract the guards while I… handle things.’

‘Meaning?’ Tifa asked.

‘Just follow my lead.’ Cloud rose. ‘Come on.’

They passed through a gate and entered a small clearing. ‘...and what’s this about you never going near a Shinra warehouse?’ One of the guards placed the tip of his gun under Johnny’s chin and lifted his head with it. ‘You gonna need to lie better. Your ID got logged at a checkpoint, dumbass.’

‘No way!’ Johnny grimaced. ‘Not… unless my ID got jacked. Must have been Jessie!—’

‘Let him go.’ Tifa’s voice carried across the clearing. One of the Shinra guards turned and glared.

‘Who are you two?’ He asked, glancing between Cloud and Tifa just behind him. The cavalry?’

‘Wait… is that who I think it is?’ Johnny hopped forward on his knees. ‘Ah  _ hell _ yeah, I knew it!’ As he spoke Cloud strode past Tifa. ‘Saved once again by the awesome Ava—’

A boot crashed into Johnny’s gut.  _ ‘—ooooo!’  _ He wheezed, doubling over. With a brawler’s balance Cloud bounced back a step and raised his fists. 

‘Hey!’ All three Shinra guards leveled their rifles. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?!’

Cloud heard the  _ latch _ of Tifa’s sword swinging free of her back. ‘This is the plan — here we go!…’

Two soldiers’ guns swung for Tifa; Cloud avoided a wild spray of bullets from the third as he rolled and pushed off the ground, slamming three quick punches to the grunt’s abdomen. His knuckles cracked as the rifle flew from the man’s hand. Cloud ducked and swung, slamming a kick into the side of the unsteady soldier, and knocked him to the ground. He didn’t get up.

One down. With adrenaline still pulsing through him he straightened and spun, half-expecting—

He froze when he saw Tifa standing at the ready, sword drawn away from her body, standing tall over two unconscious guards. She wasn’t even moving; she must have taken them down faster than the time he took to take down one.

She met his stare and moved from her spot. Without slinging her sword she advanced on a face-down Johnny. Cloud blinked rapidly and jogged over.

He had seen just how capable Tifa was in a fight today, but Shinra soldiers were a different enemy entirely compared to rats and lost drakes. Barret and the others had mentioned that Tifa had handled herself well on the mission. Was this what they were talking about? That she was…  _ freaky  _ strong?

‘...What do we do now?’ He asked, thoughts farther away from the present than they should have been.

The tip of Tifa’s sword lifted. ‘He’s a talker.’

‘Huh?’ Johnny muttered. Tifa’s footsteps pounded on the dirt. ‘Wait— wait, don’t do it, dude!’ He fell backward onto his back. ‘Dude, dude!—’

‘ _ No!’ _ Cloud rushed forward and pressed a hand against Tifa’s sword arm. ‘Don’t,’ he stressed.

Tifa frowned: from a long look she understood what Cloud was asking of her and crouched down in front of Johnny. ‘You wanna live?’ She asked.

‘Uh-huh!’ Johnny nodded frantically. ‘Uh-huh!’

‘Then get the hell out of town.’

‘Y-y-yes! Sure!’ Johnny stammered, stumbling to his feet. ‘You got it boss!’ He took off in a half-blind sprint, nearly tripping every few seconds. ‘You’ll never see me again! I swear!’

He disappeared around a tipped-over dumpster. Once he was out of sight Tifa looked at a downcast Cloud, then at the soldiers. ‘And them?’

Cloud’s torn gaze passed over them. All three were, thankfully, unconscious. ‘Leave them be.’ He shut his eyes.

‘You’re sure about this, Cloud? It's a big risk.’

‘ _ Please _ , Tifa _ …  _ no more killing.’

It was foolish to leave witnesses to your terrorist cell. But eventually Tifa sighed and slung her sword into place behind her. ‘Fine. Let’s go.’

* * *

Things really were different.

I mean, he had expected as much, prepared for as much considering how much time has passed and everything Tifa must have gone through. Not everyone becomes a SOLDIER. Not everyone is cut out for it. But… who she was now… the gap between them felt like a Gaia-wide chasm. It was like that dream Cloud sometimes had, where he was falling and his mother’s hand, palm proffered, kept drifting through his graying vision, never in reach, as he sank and sank into a massive, choking ocean...

When they reached the bar he tried to keep them both afloat. He fixed them both drinks and even pulled a stool behind the bar and sat opposite of her. Even then, and even after minutes of silent sipping, they weren’t saying much.

‘Tifa?’

‘Cloud.’

‘You scared me today.’

Tifa looked across the bar. Cloud stared at the wood grains beneath his glass like it was a swirling pool of water. After a moment he took another sip of his drink and pushed it aside and reluctantly met her eyes. ‘You wanted to kill Johnny. I… why would you want to do that?’

‘I didn’t. But do you think he’s smart or loyal enough to not get caught again and squeal all of Avalanche’s secrets? I was looking out for your friends.’

‘And me,’ Cloud corrected her.

‘What?’

‘And me, Tifa.’ Cloud couldn’t help but grimace. He suddenly felt angry. ‘I’m a part of Avalanche, too, you know. Johnny would have snitched on me too. So listen to me when I say I don’t approve of what you were going to do earlier! What if I wasn’t around to stop you?’

‘I would have handled it.’

‘You would have  _ killed him! _ And, that’s… that’s not right.’ Cloud said, muted. ‘Killing people… we’re not like that. Avalanche isn’t like that.’ He pushed some weight into his voice. ‘ _ I’m _ not like that, Tifa.’

‘But blowing up a reactor next to a residential district is fine?’

‘Tifa!’

‘ _ Heeeeeeey!’  _ Wedge’s booming voice barreled into the bar. The man behind it strode in a moment later. ‘What’s!... Uh…’

He couldn’t help but notice the way they were melting onto the bar like ice on hot pavement; it told him  _ way _ too much. ‘You two okay?’

Cloud wearily looked at him. ‘It’s now?’

‘Wedge?’ Barret, followed by Biggs, stepped in. ‘What’s the holdup? Something wrong?’

‘No, um…’ Wedge got a leading look from Cloud. ‘Everything’s fine,’ he said, walking forward again. After a second of skepticism Biggs and Barret followed him inside. ‘Everything’s great…’

Barret looked across the room. ‘Cloud, you ready for the meeting?’

Cloud made a point of not even looking at Tifa as he stood and walked out from behind the bar. ‘After you,’ he said, gesturing to the pinball machine.

‘Gladly.’ Barret, flanked by Wedge and Biggs, strode up to the machine and pulled a crank on its underside. Lights flashed and the floor underneath them began to drop. As the platform’s rumbling receded and Cloud drifted over to that side of the room, Tifa scooted around on her chair.

‘Cloud—’

‘I have to open after the meeting.’ Cloud briefly strode back to the bar, finished his drink, and strode back to the now ascending platform. ‘So I’d advise you to enjoy yourself until then.’

Tifa lifted and stared at her drink. Swirling, almost glowing white-green, she realized. What had Cloud been drinking? Something blue. ‘You want me to go?’

‘I won’t be able to help you out for the rest of today. Unless you have anything else to do, I’d recommend going back to your apartment and getting an early night’s rest.’

Behind her and to her right Tifa heard, not saw, Cloud pull the crank underneath the pinball machine. ‘I see.’

‘Tomorrow morning I’ll swing by your room and… well…’ Cloud’s voice dipped away as the platform underneath him did the same. ‘We’ll… do what needs to be done then.’

An incredibly vague and unsatisfying way to end a conversation, in Tifa’s view. Enough of both that her drink started to taste bad, actually. 

She was on the verge of going for some fresh air when the bar doors slammed open behind her.

‘I’m late! Hoohboy— oh, hey!’ Jessie caught her breath as she stopped next to Tifa. She eyed her hands. ‘Good drink?’

With one gulp Tifa finished it, stood, and set the empty glass down. ‘It was. I’ll be going now.’

‘Oh?’ Jessie placed her hands on her hips and ambled over to the pinball platform. ‘You going back to the apartment Cloud got you?’

Nearly at the exit Tifa stopped and glared over her shoulder. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘Just wanted to know where you’ll be later.’ Jessie gave her a warm smile. ‘I might have a job for you tonight, if you’re interested.’

Tifa wasn’t really in the mood to talk or think about anything, not least a job. ‘You know where to find me.’ And she left.

* * *

On her walk back she started to appreciate that Sector 7 Slums had lived up to its billing and was as mazelike as it appeared in the morning from the second floor of her apartment building. Without Cloud as her guide she got lost, and Tifa needed that time to walk and think.

She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what was said earlier between her and Cloud that was making her feel so displeased. There wasn’t a lack of potential answers. Frankly Cloud had acted like a coward when dealing with Johnny. He had told her himself that he was a talker. And yet he had let him run off to who-knows-where to get into the exact kind of trouble they had just saved him from. 

The way Tifa saw it, if Cloud was going to be a member of a group that blew up mako reactors, he needed a spine for these things...

There was also the concern that if an idiot like Johnny knew  _ something _ about Avalanche, chances are anyone with more than half a brain knew, too. The slums were the slums because everyone by necessity lived, breathed, and slept on each other. Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge didn’t live in Seventh Heaven, as far as Tifa could tell. Maybe their neighbors or roommates noticed them returning late last night; maybe they suspected something. And what about those filter deliveries she and Cloud had been making? Did their clients know what their Gil was going towards?

Far too many loose ends. Tifa was getting a throbbing headache just thinking about it all. For a time she thought about tracking down all the shopkeepers she and Cloud had visited earlier in the day and probing them for any suspicion, but she decided that itself would look suspicious and dropped the idea.

Then again, why did she care? She wasn’t a part of Avalanche. She hadn’t even known most of them for more than a day, besides Cloud, and even then it’d been—

Tifa came to an abrupt stop. Around her the noise and bustle of the slums fell away, sliced through by a silencing static. She blinked, felt the ground shift under her feet, and her fingers dug into her forehead, clawing at her thoughts.  _ How… long… _ Flashes of gray skies, ground, and metal, a falling bridge, twisting unendingly into the featureless distance. Like a wave fire and ash swept across, storming across old wood and rope, towering and churning until it crashed back onto her—

Her right foot swung forward and planted itself underneath her. Chatter and living ambiance returned to her in tandem with her piercing headache pulsing away. For a few long seconds she stood in the alleyway, other arm leaning on a metal sheet wall, parsing through bits of her memory.

She… she didn’t remember. She had left Nibelheim and joined SOLDIER years ago… but how many years ago, exactly? And she had gone back, too, but…

Tifa shut her eyes as another flash of pain seized her skull. She was pushing herself too much, she decided. She hadn’t been sleeping well. It wouldn’t do her any good to use brute force. Her memory of then would come to her, when she was rested and wasn’t so stressed. Sleep — Cloud was right. It would do her some good to get some sleep. She was tired.

Shrugging off the last of her headache Tifa checked her sword was still fastened and set off twice as fast as before. With a clear destination now in mind she pushed her way to her apartment. Marle was nowhere to be seen. In peace Tifa climbed the stairs to her second-floor room.

‘Woah. Where were you?’

Tifa froze; she slowly tore her gaze from her feet and scowled at the person standing next to the door to her room.  _ Great _ . ‘Jessie?’

‘Who else?’ She approvingly patted her twin metal shoulderguards. ‘I’m  _ hurt _ you’re not able to recognize me or these by now.’ Jessie’s face grew curious. ‘But,  _ again _ , where were you? Cloud said you went back to your apartment.’

An unpleasant expression settled on Tifa’s face. ‘I was taking a walk.’ With some suspicion she noted that one of Jessie’s hands was behind her back. ‘What do you want?’

‘Ah, I thought you’d never ask!’ Jessie leaned forward from her hips. ‘I’m here to ask that favor. And I hope you can keep this between you and me.’

This again. Tifa restrained herself from grimacing. ‘Okay? What is it?’

Jessie made a strange expression: her mouth stretched in two opposite directions. In silence she clasped her hands behind her back, stepped past Tifa, and swung around. ‘So… remember that conversation we had? On the train, about what Avalanche is doing to Shinra?’

Tifa crossed her arms. ‘You mean blowing up the reactors.’

‘Yes… that.’ Jessie strode past her and spun again. Both times she hadn’t shown her back to her. ‘Well, what you said made sense. Just because we’re fighting Shinra doesn’t mean we have to fight  _ like _ them… and hurt the people that rely on them.’ Her face lifted and she rushed forward, stopping a foot away from Tifa. ‘You following?’

Tifa resisted the urge to flinch back. ‘...Maybe.’

‘To do good, I want to hurt as few people as people.’ Jessie, thankfully, pulled back her head. ‘Because I believe in what we’re doing. Shinra is killing this planet and us. So I need to do better at stopping them to prove the cause to others. You know…’ After a few furtive side-glances Jessie leaned in again. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but, uh… we’re doing another mission tomorrow. Mako Reactor 5.’

‘That so?’

Jessie nodded. ‘Anyway… I want you to help me get a new blasting agent for the bomb I’m making for the op. The old one I was using is too strong. I was able to get in contact with my supplier to get a weaker one, but the best he could do on such short notice was point me to a Shinra warehouse where it’s stored. And Cloud told me that he was working the bar tonight, so—’

Tifa sighed once she realized what was being asked of her. ‘So you want me to break into a Shinra warehouse with you?’

‘Yes!’ Jessie exclaimed. ‘I— you’re a quick read, aren’t you?’ 

‘SOLDIERs have to be,’ Tifa said. She really didn’t want to do this. Maybe she could ward her off. ‘Cloud couldn’t pay me for the last mission. I had to trounce around with him delivering filters to get the Gil owed to me. I’m not going to do the same with you.’

‘You won’t go unrewarded.’ At long last Jessie revealed her hands. A red ord, swirling with red and gossamer gray and black, rested in her palms. ‘I just so happen to have a summoning materia. It’s yours if you help me.’

Tifa eyed her hands. ‘What’s in it?’

‘Not sure. Never used it myself.’ She cracked a mischievous smile. ‘I’m not sure if you noticed this Tifa, but I’m not much of a fighter myself.’

‘Because you get other people to do that for you?’

‘Hah!’ Jessie’s smile shone as she closed her hands around the orb and swung them back behind her. ‘This will be fun!’ With a hop she swept past Tifa towards the landing. ‘So let’s get going!’

Tifa frowned as she turned after her. ‘Right now?’

‘Yes, right now!’ Jessie tipped her head. ‘The sun’s setting! We need to get a move on now if we’re going to get back before tomorrow!’

‘How far away is this warehouse?’

‘I’ll tell you on the way!’ Jessie beckoned her over. ‘Come on!’

Tifa didn’t remember even agreeing to help her, and yet Jessie was acting like she had… she could feel traces of her headache hovering on the edges of her consciousness. Sleep would do her well. She was tired.

But Jessie was staring with her stupid expression of hers. This entire crew of people was terrible.

‘...Alright.’


	4. Plateside and Dash

Tifa had to rush to keep up. As the sun lamps dangling from the plate above dimmed, Jessie expertly wove between throngs of people returning home for the night. Tifa was not as skilled or maneuverable, and frequently had to hold her sword to her back as she squeezed through crowded alleyways and avenues, but she never lost sight of Jessie — and more importantly, Jessie made sure to never lose sight of her by stopping intermittently to give her time to catch up.

All in all it was a surprisingly difficult trip to the station. Time dragged and by the time Jessie led her up the platforms’ steps it was completely dark out beyond the soft green glow of the station’s Mako lamps. Tifa watched Jessie pad out to the platform’s edge, glance up and down the track, and then up and down the platform. ‘Not a lot of people here…’ she muttered.

Tifa had noticed that. The crowd had thinned as they got closer to the station. ‘More room on the train for us.’

‘I’m afraid that train isn’t coming.’

Both Tifa and Jessie’s shoulders lifted as they swung around. At the bottom of the steps two motorbikes rolled into view, pushed by two familiar faces.

‘Biggs? Wedge?’ Jessie descended the platform. ‘What are you two doing here?’

‘Tsk, tsk, tsk.’ Biggs wryly shook his head. ‘You’re off your game, Jessie. Shinra canceled all the night routes after the bombing yesterday. There’s no route to get topside tonight.’

Jessie’s face dropped. ‘Oh… really?’

‘Hey, but no worries!’ Wedge patted the metal chassis of his bike. ‘Cause with these Shinra won’t keep us anywhere!’

Tifa was hovering on the top step behind Jessie. ‘You two are going where?’

‘With you!’ Wedge’s gaze jumped between Jessie and Tifa. ‘Er — both of you, if you’re both going where we think you’re going…’

‘And where are we going?’ Jessie asked.

‘You can’t fool us, Jessie.’ Biggs said through his smile. ‘We saw how quickly you left the meeting earlier. And you’ve been in a weird mood all day. You’re off to see your parents. Your mom, am I right?’

‘Mom?’ Tifa asked.

‘Right you are!’ Jessie said, smiling thinly. ‘Got me: it’s a standard plateside-and-dash. But, uh…’ She glanced at the bikes. ‘Going through all this trouble to get these, I didn’t expect you two would...’

‘It’s not a problem,’ Biggs said.

‘Just so you know, we’d expect you to do the same for us!’ Wedge shouted. ‘Friendship isn’t a one-way street!’

Jessie nodded. ‘Of course. Thank you, guys.’ By this point Tifa had gone down the stairs, but before she could utter a question budding on her lips, Jessie spoke again. ‘Do you mind if Tifa and I take one bike and you two take the other? It’d be more comfortable for us two.’

‘Please, by all means.’ Biggs gestured and let her take one of the bikes by its handles. ‘This is  _ your _ trip, after all.’

* * *

She hadn’t agreed to take a bike topside, but Tifa did want that materia: eventually she relented and let Jessie climb onto the bike behind her, arms wrapped around her abdomen. It had been a while — since training to be a SOLDIER, she thought — since Tifa had driven a motorbike, but after a few testing twists of the throttle she got a sense of the vehicle and sped onto the train track. As Wedge drove him and Biggs after them, Jessie stood slightly and directed Tifa with swings of her arm at the first few forks. With her right arm extended Tifa’s Buster Sword glided through the air beside them as she gently turned at high-speed.

Soon enough they were in a wide, curving tunnel, known by Jessie to be one of the main arteries of inter-plate train traffic.

Tifa suppressed a groan as Jessie practically climbed on top of her to holler back. ‘You better be right about the train schedule, Biggs! I’m gonna be  _ mad _ if I get  _ splat _ by a train!’

About fifty yards behind them Biggs flashed a big thumbs up. Satisfied, Jessie nodded and settled back into her seat.

‘Hey.’ Tifa titled back. Jessie had propped her head over her left shoulder and nearly had her mouth to her ear. ‘Thank you for coming,’ She went on. ‘I’m not sure I could have done this on my own.’

‘We haven’t gotten to the warehouse yet. Thank me later.’

‘True, but I don’t even know how to ride a bike!’ Jessie laughed. ‘Imagine if you weren’t around to drive me?’

‘I’m not a chauffeur.’

‘You drive as good as one!’ Jessie teased. ‘Maybe this can be your back-up career if “Stoic Merc” doesn't work out.’

Tifa had nothing to say to that and hung closer to the handles to better focus on driving. But annoyingly Jessie just followed her there with her arms wrapped around her abdomen. ‘So… just to sate my curiosity… were you and Cloud ever a thing?’

An image of a starry sky flashed through Tifa’s mind, feeling vaguely… frustrating. That, or because she cared next to nothing about Jessie’s question but would be forced to answer it considering the circumstances. ‘No.’

‘No? Didn’t even think about it?’ Jessie hugged Tifa further to worm her head more forward. ‘Didn’t you two grow up together?’

‘...’ They did. But what did that have to do with anything? She… she didn’t remember any specific events between them, after all. ‘We did.’

‘Hm.’ Jessie rolled her chin on Tifa’s shoulder before drawing back. ‘His loss. Weird, too, because I always thought he had good taste in women… I mean,’ she made a pleased sound, ‘considering his  _ other _ fling…’

So Jessie was a gossip. Tifa made sure to commit that to memory. ‘You talk too much.’

The arms around Tifa stiffened. ‘Excuse me?’

‘We’re on a mission. You should be focusing on that.’

‘I’m just as focused as I need to be.’ Again, her head landed on Tifa’s shoulder. ‘I can talk shop  _ and _ be a lookout, you know.’

Thin red light suddenly flitted through the tunnel. Tifa’s head tipped to the tunnel’s ceiling.

‘ID Scans like on the train yesterday,’ Jessie explained. ‘As long as we don’t get caught by a patrol we’ll be fine.’

Tifa glanced ahead. ‘Too late.’

‘Huh?’ Jessie saw what had caught Tifa’s attention. She hitched, then spun around and cupped a hand to her mouth. ‘ _ Look alive, boys! We’ve got company!’ _

Wedge and Biggs looked alarmed but Jessie’s view of them was wrenched away as Tifa hung left and swung right, sword held from Tifa’s right hand. A patrol bike slowed to intercept them but before it could come to a relative stop Tifa cranked the bike’s throttle and slashed her sword in an arc across the bike’s side. Oil spurted and tires unraveled, and the poor Shinra patrolman lost control as his vehicle skidded forward and crashed into the tunnel’s left side in a chaotic explosion.

Fire and heat washed over them, forcing them lower to the bike. ‘Hey!’ Jessie shouted. ‘Don’t kill them!’

Tifa eyed the rest of the patrol — three bikes in total, four troops — slow to catch them. ‘Wasn’t trying to.’

‘ _ Jessie! Tifa!’ _ Jessie twisted around and saw Biggs aiming Wedge’s rifle down the tunnel. ‘ _ Get to the side!’ _

Tifa swerved the bike leftward as a spray of bullets zoomed down the tunnel. Two more of the bikes popped their tires and slid out, their riders tumbling up and down the tracks. The last guard, seeing how quickly their buddies were handled, broke hard and flashed past the four of them.

Biggs and Wedge sped up to Tifa and Jessie. ‘You two alright?’ Biggs asked.

‘We’re fine,’ Tifa answered. She spared a glance backward. ‘We’re going to let that one get away?’

‘If we get plateside fast enough, he won’t be an issue,’ Jessie said. ‘Our IDs will still work even if he got a half-good look at us.’

Tifa began to speak but cut herself off once she looked forward. ‘Nevermind.’ More bikes were breaking off from the tunnel’s sides. ‘We’ve got more company.’

‘Left!’ Jessie stood and pointed to the upcoming fork. ‘No one’s coming that way!  _ Left! _ ’

‘Hang on!’ Tifa cranked the throttled and sped, spinning tires coming just feet away from the concrete wall rising between this tunnel and the one they left — the one with all the Shinra grunts. Biggs waved at them with his rifle as Wedge pushed his bike after Tifa.

* * *

Avoiding that group meant no more patrols accosted them in the tunnels — for the solo Shinra riders that did, Tifa’s sword and Bigg’s rifle made short work of them. Their bikes eventually delivered them to the open-air topside tracks at the edges of the Sector 7 Plate. Side-by-side they zoomed over metal rail and loose dirt. Jessie made a relieved sound as she stretched on top of Tifa.

‘Finally!’ She exclaimed, tightening her hug on Tifa. ‘I thought we’d never get out of there.’

‘Shinra must have given up,’ Biggs said.

‘More like they couldn’t be bothered,’ Tifa watched the bend of the tracks. Though they were now at the plate they seemed to be in a sub-level train line. The overpasses looming over them and the high embankments to either side made her anxious. They were exposed. ‘Four trespassers on bikes aren’t worth losing more than a squad over.’

‘Their loss!’ Jessie cheered. ‘Because now we’re going to hit them where it hurts!’ She pointed forward. ‘Onward to the warehouse, Tifa!’

‘...Warehouse?’ Wedge asked, confused.

‘ _ There will be no such thing!’ _

The almost theatrical voice echoed around them. Out of nowhere, a red bike wall-raced along the left embankment and launched into the sky, flipping and spinning until landing perfectly on the tracks in front of them. As the bike powered on a gray sword lifted and flicked from the rider’s left wrist. ‘No one will be going anywhere!’ His head turned and a mane of long blonde hair fluttered around a stubbled chin and manic blue-green eyes.

Tifa found herself staring into them — and them into hers. ‘I’ve watched you from afar, SOLDIER!’ He pointed the tip of his blade at her. ‘Roche, the Speed Demon SOLDIER, challenges you to a dance!’

‘Tifa?’ Jessie whispered into her ear. ‘Who is this?’

Tifa flexed her left hand and tightened her grip on her Buster Sword. ‘No idea.’

‘Do you accept?’ Roche’s entire bike squirmed as his sword rose into the air. ‘ _ Will you dance with me? _ ’

The blade cut to the left, darting as its tip swung around and slashed diagonally. A band of blue light shot forth and electrified the tracks.

‘Hold tight!’ Tifa’s hand twisted forward and the bike lurched to the side, rolling onto a patch of gravel to avoid the rails. 

Jessie hugged her tighter. ‘Tifa!’

Metal sounded as the Buster Sword swung and clipped the tracks — sparks scattered along its length and a smaller surge of electricity raced back forward, sprinting towards Roche. He spotted it a moment too late and his bike nearly stalled out from under him as he fought it to keep motoring.

Flames spewing from her exhaust Tifa sped forward, sword hung from her right side, and swept past Roche. Their swords rang once, twice, thrice, as she twisted and passed, aiming for sides of his bike. But despite his vehicle’s struggles Roche expertly kept his blade moving, blocking or intercepting Tifa’s strikes before her sword could taste oil or rubber.

After another failed pass Tifa abruptly hit the brakes. ‘Screw this.’ She and Jessie titled to the left as the bike came just next to the embankment. ‘Here.’ Tifa pried Jessie’s hands off of her abdomen and placed them on the handles, then stood and twisted in a single move. ‘Take control.’

‘ _ What _ !?’ Jessie reached forward as Tifa vaulted off the bike and started sprinting along the left embankment. Old brick and mortar shook under her feet as her hair billowed out from a failing knot, sword tipped and shifting its edge forward. As she gained on her target she made a quick calculation, pulled back her right arm, and then rushed toward where the embankment met the tracks and jumped.

Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge all gaped as Tifa sailed through the air, flipping with her limbs tucked into her, and then unfurled like a net in front of her target, sword swinging down in a cruel arc towards Roche. His bike shook again, tread weakening, and with wide eyes he raised his sword in a counter-arc aiming for Tifa’s side.

The screech as their weapons scraped and cut into each other blared up and down the tracks. Jessie cringed at the sound but forced herself to look. At the last second Tifa had readjusted, bringing her sword to her left to block Roche’s attack, though now she was off-balance and nearly falling off of the hood of Roche’s bike.

They and their blades glared at each other for a moment. Then Roche released his grip on his sword. ‘Well done,’ He said. ‘Very well  _ done _ . You’ve won this round.’

Tifa shifted slightly so that she could wrench her weapon out of the slice driven into the hood of Roche’s bike. Below hers his sword was shunted even further into the vehicle. Batting down his attack had worked as well as she could have hoped.

‘Please, before you go…’ Roche caught her attention. ‘Who did I just have the honor of dueling?’

Tifa brushed her loose hair — the tied knot had finally given up — forward and across her right shoulder and lifted her sword. ‘I’m just a SOLDIER.’ Tifa turned. ‘Nothing else to it.’

As his bike slowed to a stop she crouched and jumped, landed cat-like in front of Jessie, and throttled their bike down the tracks and out of sight.

* * *

As they found their turn-off and pulled into a small service alcove underneath an overpass, Tifa wasted no time in hoisting herself off the bike and slinging her sword back onto her back. Her right arm was starting to ache from holding it so long.

‘Wow.’

Tifa turned. Jessie was still on the bike. Worse, she looked  _ awed _ . ‘That was… crazy!’

Beside Jessie Biggs and Wedge’s bike slowed to a stop. ‘What she said!’ Wedge seconded, leaning on his handles. ‘Where’d you learn how to do… well…  _ all _ of that?’

Tifa shook her sword at its grip to make sure it was latched properly. ‘It’s just SOLDIER Stuff. Nothing special.’

‘That biker guy didn’t do what  _ you _ did, though!’

‘I didn’t give him the chance.’

Biggs slid off the bike behind Wedge. ‘You can say that again.’

‘Hm!’ Jessie strode up to Tifa and tapped her on her forehead. ‘I  _ knew _ bringing you along would be a good idea.’ Abruptly she swung around. ‘You two couldn’t have flipped through the air like that!’

Wedge and Biggs smirked as they glanced at each other. ‘Got us there,’ Wedge said.

‘So.’ Tifa did her best to forget Jessie’s annoying tap and walked over to a flight of stairs leading to the plate’s surface. ‘Onto… your parents’ house?’

Jessie’s cool demeanor faulted only for a moment. ‘Yes!’ She brushed past Tifa and started up the stairs, Biggs and Wedge not far behind. ‘My Mom will be super excited to see you all! She might even whip us up something to eat. Who knows?’

‘Ah yeah, that’d be awesome!’ Wedge clutched his stomach. ‘That ride  _ really _ made me hungry. Do you think she’ll make her Midgar Special pizza?’

‘Maybe if you ask nicely!’

Biggs laughed. ‘Are you always thinking about food, man?’

Their conversation from that point on filtered down to Tifa in bits and pieces as she took up the rear. The stair doubled back on itself to a service gate. When the metal doors slid apart Tifa got her first look at a plate without the reactor blown and fire and debris scattered everywhere. 

Picture perfect houses lined the streets, lit by faint white-green streetlamps, running straight towards the Shinra Tower towering above all else at the heart of Midgar. Even here, in this quaint neighborhood, Tifa saw the massive pipes and circuitry running alongside the plate’s left end, feeding the electricity produced by the Sector 7 Reactor behind them to the center of the city. 

Knee-deep in the slums with people and shambly and thrown-together metal shacks, Tifa could forget who ran things in Midgar. Up here, though? Looking at the bus lanes and prefabricated buildings? There wasn’t much doubt.

Jessie stopped at the front of the group, and with her hands on her hips, she gazed at the plate stretched out before them. ‘Shinra employee housing…’ She mused before turning around. ‘Where Shinra sticks you if you want a job that pays well enough to get out of the slums. The people that live here… they’re living the good life while Shinra’s reactors suck the life out of the planet.’

She looked like she had something else to say but frowned and set off down the street. Tifa saw Biggs and Wedge share a knowing look before following her.

So Jessie was talking about growing up here, considering that her parents live here. That struck Tifa as odd. Her family worked for Shinra and she was running around with Avalanche? Seemed hypocritical.

Tifa was caught up in that thought when Jessie slowed to catch her. ‘Hey,’ she said in a low enough voice to not be heard by Biggs and Wedge chatting up ahead. ‘Just so you know, we’re still here to get into that warehouse. To do that we’re going to need a Shinra keycard… my Dad’s keycard.’

Tifa made explicit the implication. ‘You want me to steal from your parents?’

‘I really wouldn’t call it stealing.’ Jessie’s mouth curled. ‘You’ll understand when you get inside. Just keep in mind that while Biggs, Wedge, and I are with my Mom, you’ll have a straight shot to the keycard. Get it, and we’re golden.’

‘Fine.’ Tifa said. ‘As long as I’m paid.’

Jessie suppressed a grin. ‘So it’s more of an “Uncaring Merc” persona, huh?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Nothing.’ Jessie waved away her objection and jogged up to catch the others. ‘I’ll turn on the lights by the side door when it’s time! Good luck!’

* * *

While waiting Tifa gathered most of her free-swinging hair into a few economical braids and realized she hadn’t eaten since lunch: the growing minute-by-minute smell of freshly made pizza rolling out from the house began to make her stomach growl. Jessie wasn’t lying when she said her Mom might spontaneously make them some food.

But being forced to wait against a house corner while a few curious house cats yawned and stretched on the brick wall beside her was ranked low on her list of most unpleasant experiences. She thought of a worse time than this — a memory of a fight crashed through her mind. Some boy in Nibelheim had stupidly pulled on her hair and nearly wrenched her to the ground when it had first grown past her shoulders. She had gotten so mad that she punched — two or three, or maybe four times. She couldn’t remember clearly. Either way he ended up on the ground, sniffling, mucus and tears mixing with the bright blood rolling out of his nose.

It was… a weird memory, she decided. Tifa never thought of herself as a quarreling kind of kid. And yet she vividly remembered that incident — it happening, at least. Though the sky that day was startlingly green for a village high in the mountains...

Swallowing, Tifa pulled on her turtleneck collar to breathe a bit easier. She was on a job. No time for distraction.

Eventually and as promised the side door light came on, and with a careful step Tifa opened the door and stepped inside.

‘ _ GREAT PIZZA AS ALWAYS MRS. R!’  _ Wedge’s satisfied voice practically sawed through the walls.

A voice Tifa didn't know — presumably Jessie’s mom — answered. ‘Well, I know how much you all like my cooking, so I made sure to cook enough for seconds!’

Tifa heard what sounded like fists banging on a table. ‘ _ GET OUT!?’ _

Jessie had been right: their chatting would be loud enough to drown out any noise Tifa could have made. Avoiding the loud door at the end of the hall, she slipped over to the door to her right and entered that room.

An electronic  _ beep _ — though she didn’t recognize it as that at first — nearly made her draw her sword. But she calmed herself as she recognized the medical cot and the diagnostic unit at the other end of the room. Not a threat. A man in a bed.

... _ Wait. _ Tifa crept forward and studied the man’s gray-stubbled face. There was no mistaking the pale, clammy color and the almost spectral green glow of his skin. While in SOLDIER she had seen this hundreds of times in some of the weaker recruits — the ones that didn’t stay in the program for long. Occasionally they wouldn’t be well and would have to spend a day in bed. And on those days the Mako would almost bleed out of them like a shining, dying sun, staining the air with a sickly and sour smell. This was Jessie’s father, and he was suffering from Mako poisoning.  _ Extreme _ Mako poisoning. He hadn’t reacted at all to her entering the room. He was in a coma, or close to it. There was no doubt in Tifa’s mind.

This must have either been his bedroom or a converted sick room. Artifacts of someone’s life were scattered around the room. Curious, Tifa examined a few items. He had been the person in the family working for Shinra, it seemed; a yellow work uniform in what looked like his size was hanging on the outside of a wardrobe door. She found what she assumed was his plastic keycard in it.

Tifa stared down at the bed as she held the keycard between her thumb and her index finger. There were a few other things in the room — an old letter on a stand, from Jessie describing her time preparing for the star role in a new theater show, family photos. She kept glancing back at the bed.

* * *

About half an hour later, waiting at the exact same spot she had been earlier, Tifa watched Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge emerge from the home.

‘ _ Great _ meal!’ Wedge exclaimed, patting his stomach. ‘I only wish we could have stayed for thirds!’

‘You’re way greedy, man,’ Biggs quipped. ‘You got  _ two rounds _ of free pizza and you’re not satisfied?’

‘I would have paid her, if that’s the issue!’

‘You don’t understand Moms,’ Jessie said, sweeping past them towards Tifa. ‘You got it?’

Tifa reached for a hip pocket and produced the keycard. ‘Here.’

‘Great!’ Jessie pumped her right fist. ‘Now comes the hard part…’

‘Awesome.’ Biggs chimed in. ‘So what’s the real reason we’re up here, boss?’

Jessie swung around, confused. ‘Huh? I mean — we already visited —‘

‘You can tell us, Jessie,’ Wedge urged her. ‘I mean, the pizza was nice... but I’d be  _ shocked _ if that was the  _ only _ thing we came all the way up here for.’

‘Oh, well…’ Jessie paced down a segment of the street. ‘You see… I’m actually breaking into a Shinra warehouse.’ She tilted her head, lips pinching. ‘Looking for a weaker blaster agent for the bomb for tomorrow night. Something to make the explosion less… big. So, now you know… sorry...’

Biggs smiled as he shook his head. ‘You know, you could have told us.’

‘I didn’t want to force you two into helping after  _ already _ giving us a bike and offering to drive up here with us.’

‘Jessie, you goof!’ Wedge laughed. ‘It’s like we said! We knew from the beginning something was up. You have a habit of being a little theatrical before a mission. Earlier today we picked up on that and assumed you were planning something. We just didn’t force it out of you because we didn’t want to make it awkward.’

‘Instead, we made sure you couldn’t  _ possibly _ refuse our offer to help when the time came!’ Biggs said, slamming his fist into his hand. ‘That’s why we’re here, boss!’

‘Oh, really!’ Jessie’s face melted. ‘Aww! You guys! That’s one of the sweetest, darn things… bring it here!’

The three of them wrapped together and hugged. Feeling out of place, Tifa looked away.

‘Well!’ Jessie drew back, catching Tifa’s attention. ‘Now that we’re all on the same page, here’s the plan: I’m going to sneak into the warehouse to find that blasting agent. While I’m in there I’m going to need a distraction.’

Biggs nodded. ‘Say no more. We’ll make a racket. Where do you need us?’

‘In the main courtyard. You’ll be surrounded by the base in three directions… so you’ll be hemmed in, but it’ll be easy to draw every guard possible.’ She turned to Tifa. ‘You’ll be with them there.’

‘That it?’ Tifa asked.

‘Yep. And make sure you  _ don’t _ start a scene until I give you the signal.’

‘What signal?’ Wedge asked.

Jessie checked her hip pockets. ‘I — ah. Here, my flare gun,’ she showed them it. ‘I’ll shoot into the sky right before I sneak into the warehouse. That work?’

‘Sure does!’

‘Great. When I get what I need — when I make my escape from the warehouse with the blasting agent — once outside I’ll signal you guys to get out there with a second flare. So make sure you keep your eyes on the sky for when to run.’

‘Sure. Sounds simple enough,’ Biggs said.

Jessie grinned. ‘That’s the key to a good op! So… no more questions?... Cool! I’ll get into position.’ She gave them a wave and set off, jogging. ‘Good luck!’

* * *

They crept down the street after Jessie, albeit slower, and after losing sight of her and sneaking past a guard station they settled against a building corner with a good view of the nearby sky and the warehouse courtyard below it. Now to wait for that flare...

‘So, um…’ Wedge’s muttering pulled Tifa’s attention from their target. ‘When you grabbed that keycard… you saw Jessie’s Dad, huh?’

Tifa recognized the discomfort in his eyes. In Biggs’, too. ‘I did,’ she answered.

‘He’s been like that for a while,’ Biggs said, moving away from the wall. His boots sounded softly on the asphalt. ‘A little over two years, now. You see, Jessie… she was an actor, you know?’ Biggs turned and paced back to the corner. For whatever reason Tifa moved away from her post watching over the courtyard in tandem. ‘After getting by with a few low-profile roles for a few years, she got her big break and was set to perform in the opening show of the season at the Gold Saucer. But... right before opening night, her Dad collapsed from exhaustion while servicing the Sector 7 Reactor core, and...’

Biggs scratched at his neck. ‘Yeah…’

‘He was in there for  _ hours _ before anyone realized,’ Wedge continued, moving to take Tifa’s place as lookout at the corner. ‘So he got Mako poisoning… and has been in a coma ever since. Once Jessie heard she rushed back to Midgar…’ Wedge wilted, ‘but…’

‘There wasn’t anything she could do.’ Biggs held his revolver in his hands. His thumb ran over the grip. ‘Pretty much  _ no-one _ comes out of a Mako coma —  _ ever _ . Doctors can’t do anything to help, let alone an actor like Jessie.’

‘She started drowning in helplessness,’ Wedge said, a sour look on his face. ‘Like her Mom she started living on a Shinra compensatory pension — blood money for what they did to her Dad — and could only hope for him to get better. So she started coming down to the Sector 7 Slums to drink… and one day she barged into Seventh Heaven drunk as us two, Barret, and Cloud were holding an Avalanche meeting. And here we are.’

Tifa blinked as she connected the story to the present. One detail stuck out to her. ‘She joined after crashing your secret meeting?’ She asked.

There was some pride in Biggs and Wedge’s eyes. ‘Yup,’ Biggs said.

‘What if she didn’t want to join?’

‘Nah,’ Wedge brushed off her concerns. ‘It was fate, meant to be. Like the planet pushed her to us and the cause.’

‘Does this happen often?’

‘You’re missing the point,’ Biggs chided her. ‘And, well…’ He shared a glance with Wedge. ‘We’ll let you in on a little secret. We believe Shinra’s killing the planet, just the same as Jessie, Barret, and Cloud. But we’ve also suffered because of Shinra. In all honesty, we wouldn’t be fighting if that wasn’t true… our past spurs us to act, you know?’

‘And because of that we help her, just like us how she’d help us,’ Wedge stated. ‘We’re all fighting our own battles. But through Avalanche we get to unite our strength and work for a greater good — for people who are struggling every day and don’t know or can’t accept Shinra’s to blame!’ Wedge ended, pumping his fist.

Tifa’s mouth pinched slightly. ‘Uh-huh…’

‘So we’re doing this for a lot of reasons,’ Biggs said. ‘But… just remember that no matter what we  _ all _ came from, we fight  _ together _ because we believe in Avalanche and the promise we made to each other — the same promise Jessie made to her Dad once she got to Midgar.’

Curiosity tugged on Tifa. ‘What promise?’

‘That, you’ll have to ask her.’

‘...’ Tifa watched Biggs and Wedge turn their attention on the courtyard — away from her. ‘I think I understand.’

It was an interesting thought. In some ways, she understood what they were talking about. They had their ideals but what set them in motion in the first place was harm, regret, failure. Jessie had a sad past. From what Tifa heard, so did Wedge and Biggs. Barret was missing half an arm, so clearly there was something unpleasant behind that. Cloud… and Cloud, he...

Tifa placed her hand over her chest, pressing into her skin and feeling her sternum. Her heartbeat was normal. Why did she suddenly feel so empty?

‘By the way — don’t tell Jessie we spoke to you about this or her Dad, okay? She’ll punch us.’

She nodded, unable to do much more while thinking. As his words echoed senselessly in Tifa’s head her gaze drifted skyward. On top of the building they were hiding behind a vaguely shaped tower of metal rose into the night sky, cables and pipes snaking up and down it. There was a gentle breeze, and a flicker of color sticking from its side —- and then —

_ She gripped her jeans hard enough to tear them. Her normal dresses wouldn’t have had any fabric here at her legs to rip apart but it was important she dressed the part. She wasn’t going to be weak anymore. She  _ **_wasn’t_ ** **.**

_ Her frustration dispersed as soon as she heard feet padding up the water tower’s ladder. Now nervous, she swung her head right, unbound black hair swinging in the night’s wind, and her eyes met his, clear and blue like a never-ending day sky. Underneath his shaggy light blonde hair he smiled faintly as he stepped off the ladder. _

_ ‘Heya.’ _

_ She forced some calm into her voice. ‘Hey, Cloud.’ Her hand gestured to a spot next to her. ‘Sit.’ _

_ He looked at her funny. ‘Okay…’ _

_ The water tower’s girding wooden platform had just enough room so that they could lean their backs onto it and let their legs swing free-and-clear off the sides. They were sitting on the ends of a corner, each facing a different direction of the darkness. Nibelheim was shadowed and eerie, lit only by the stray ambient Mako that reached all the way down from the reactor at Mt. Nibel and the stars overhead even further away. _

_ ‘So, Tifa… why’d you call me up here?’ Cloud asked into the night air. _

_ Moment of truth. She balled her hands into her jeans again. ‘I… wanted to tell you that I’m leaving Nibelheim.’ _

_ ‘Oh.’ Cloud shifted. ‘Like all the other guys, then.’ _

_ She ignored that. ‘I’m going to become a SOLDIER,’ she declared, ‘like Sephiroth.’ _

_ ‘The war hero?’  _

_ Cloud paused. For a long time. ‘Is that why you’re wearing pants?’ _

_ Tifa felt herself blushing. ‘Er— no!’ She thrust her head away. ‘That’s not it!’ _

_ ‘I guess… they won’t let you wear dresses in SOLDIER, huh?’ _

_ ‘Cloud!’ _

_ ‘Do they even have girl SOLDIERs?’ _

_ Tifa swung back, anger blazing in her eyes, balled fist landing between them, startling Cloud back an inch. ‘I’ll be the first if they don’t!’ _

_ They remained like that for a time, Tifa and her knuckles sinking into the platform, until both let the emotion drain from their faces and they settled quietly back into their places, gazing out at the night. Cloud started swinging his legs. _

_ ‘That’ll be tough, right?’ _

_ Tifa let her head ease back and gazed at the night sky. Blue cosmic bands sprinkled with dots of light stretched across her vision. ‘I think so. So I don’t think I’ll be back for a long time.’ _

_ ‘...do you think you’ll be in the papers?’ Cloud asked. ‘Like Sephiroth?’ _

_ ‘I’ll try.’ _

_ A silence settled on them. Tifa’s nerves again began to eat at her. Maybe it wasn’t the right idea to invite him up here. She didn’t owe anything to him — not in a way he’d understand, anyway. This must have seemed random, even strange. Perhaps it’d be best if she just left now —  _

‘ _ Okay…’ Cloud said slowly. ‘Just make me a promise.’ _

_ Tifa glanced at the side of his face. ‘A promise?’ _

_ ‘Yeah. When you make it as a SOLDIER. Promise me that… if I’m ever in trouble, or trapped… you’ll save me.’ He turned, greeting her gaze with an easy smile. ‘That’s what SOLDIERs do, right?’ _

_ ‘...Yeah.’ Tifa’s mouth lifted slightly. ‘They do.’ _

_ ‘Good. You as a SOLDIER…’ Cloud smiled as he shook his head. ‘Hmph…’ _

_ The night was crisp and clear, and Tifa felt the wind rush past her and Cloud. The winds of change and all that brought. _

* * *

Like rain swelling dry ground the memory broke, shoving Tifa back to the present. The water tower with its colorful wind fan faded away and in its place the gray metal of Midgar stepped in. She held her head as she slowly recentered her attention to her feet.

She had forgotten that… or forgotten the  _ feel _ of that memory. The weight in her chest as she waited. The  _ joy _ when he came. She had been so nervous and angry and  _ concerned _ until that moment. But once they chatted she felt better. Even now, piercing through the grogginess of experiencing such an intense, immediate, and unrecalled memory, she felt that calmness touch and lighten her mood like a hand at her back.

They must have been 14 or 15. So young. So…  _ different.  _ She had made a promise to save him once she became a SOLDIER… but why had she felt that weight? Why did she then feel  _ joy _ ?

‘Tifa? Hey!’

Her gaze shot upward. ‘What?’

Hugging the building’s corner Wedge hooked his thumb over his right shoulder. Fluorescent orange shimmered in the night sky like a second sun. ‘See it?’

‘That’s the signal.’ Biggs cocked his revolver and started bouncing on his feet. ‘Let’s roll!’

* * *

Tifa led their charge through the gate, sword slicing through the air at the side. ‘Take the center!’ Biggs told her as he split off. ‘Wedge and I will take the sides and help you from there!’

Putting them away from any immediate combat was important, they had decided. They were good with guns and didn't have the reflexes for close-quarters fighting. Perhaps more importantly, with them far away, Tifa didn’t have to temper her swings.

‘ _ Hyaaaagh!’ _ Like a bolt she rushed into the middle of a bewildered Shinra squad, sword lashing and thrashing all around her, and with a final swing, knocked the officer onto his back along with the rest of his unconscious squad.

‘Over there!’ Another Shinra guard yelled, nearer to the warehouse. ‘Release the— _ gah! _ ’

A barrel fell from the sky and knocked the man to the ground. Tifa glanced up and saw Biggs flash her a thumbs up from a second-floor catwalk running the courtyard’s perimeter. She nodded. They might be of more use than she thought.

With a steadying breath she centered her blade, pressing her pommel into her right thigh. As a good distraction did, she waited and raised her voice.

‘What are you waiting for?’ She shouted, startling the Shinra guards who had newly filtered into the courtyard. With a dip of her wrists she sliced concrete, showering the area around her with sparks. ‘I’m right here!’

‘That’s a SOLDIER!’ One of the guards cried. ‘I’m sure of it! Look at her eyes!’

A few started backing up. ‘We won’t stand a chance against her! I mean —  _ look at her! _ ’

‘ _ Men!’ _ From the growing crowd a red-plated officer strode out, boots practically cracking against the ground. ‘ _ Stay out of reach of her sword! And release everything we’ve got!’ _

That was Tifa’s cue to move. She wouldn’t be much good as a distraction if she got overwhelmed or cornered. As rifle barrels centered on her Tifa was already moving, sprinting towards the officer trying to rally them. Stray metal and casings landed in a trail behind her as her sword flashed and spun in front of her, smacking aside grunts and shielding herself from sprays of gunfire.

Halfway to the officer he seemed to realize that she was, in fact, going to reach him. His gun started dropping as he backed up, growing more terrified. ‘Aughh!... Augh! Stop!’ He shouted at her, suddenly shooting wildly. His wild aim caused a number of his soldiers to duck and run off as Tifa advanced, sprinting. ‘ _ SOLDIER! You!—’ _

He said nothing more, or more accurately, Tifa heard nothing else as she spotted a glint of metal sailing through the air above. At the last second she stabbed her sword into the ground, breaking her momentum, and dashed backward, seconds before a rocket landed near the feet of the officer and kissed her with the heat and flame of an explosion.

So he was dead. Tifa slid backward as she landed, wrenching her gaze to the second-floor catwalks. She could make out a few turrets lining the courtyard. And yet as she counted them one tipped over and fell over the guardrail. Again, Biggs flashed her a thumbs up.

They were decidedly proving more useful. Though Wedge —

_ ‘Tifa! _ ’ Wedge’s voice abruptly shouted, coming from a second-floor catwalk to her left. ‘ _ Watch out!’ _

It took her a split-second to realize what he was talking about — her sword twirled and caught the bite of a Shinra dog, teeth snarling and grating against the metal, just as several more fanned out around her. With a snarl of her own she freed her weapon and batted the beast with a few loping and flat swings of her blade back towards the periphery of the pack of growling, raging, foaming dogs now circling her. 

Tifa hoisted her weapon, handle higher than the tip of her weapon, and steadied herself with a breath as she slowly turned. Seven-on-one odds weren’t great. They weren't impossible, either.

A tail flashed and Tifa wheeled to her left, sword swinging in an arc, just missing the beast’s underside as it scraped fruitlessly against concrete. Just as she started turning again another dog rocketed past her, claws swiping, and Tifa dodged just a second too slow to avoid a gash opening up on her right leg. Grimacing, she shifted her weight onto her other side and hopped backward, avoiding a lunging bite, and spun her sword back around, slicing across a beast sprinting towards her back.

The dying animal was flung backward, past the circle — which quickly closed up with two more dogs padding over. The tips of Tifa’s braids dripped with sweat as she wheeled quickly, sword swinging back and forth to ward off any momentary attacks, even as she felt her flesh on her right side grow wet. Another scratch. One she hadn’t even felt or seen.

She had too much adrenaline rushing through her. Tifa counted ten now hemming her in. Not great. If one got a good grip on her...

‘ _ Fssssshhhhhh!’  _ A whistle blew through the air, startling Tifa and  _ enraging  _ the Shinra dogs around her. With incoherent screams they spun, same as Tifa, and spotted Wedge drawing a whistle from his mouth. ‘ _ I’m right here!’  _ He began running away from them, blowing the whistle in between gasps for air. ‘ _ COME AND GET ME!’ _

The dogs didn’t keep him waiting. As he sprinted from the pack one in particular charged ahead and sank its teeth into —

Wedge’s butt.

Tifa had to stop herself from gaping as Wedge’s entire body curled and launched into the air, hands racing to his pants. ‘ _ YAAAAAOOOOOUUUUUCH!!!’ _

Even as he flew the dogs as one pack sprinted after him, teeth bared and paws scrabbling against the concrete. Tifa squinted to track this, then pivoted as another dog leaped towards her and she brought her sword in a swirling arc, slicing through the beast’s underbelly. Before it had even hit the floor she was spinning, sword raised for another block — but to her surprise the circle around her had melted away: only one dog was left, growling at her as its heavy paws stamped and dragged across the ground.

Wedge… drew them away. He bought her space!

Her sword flashed and she rushed past another downed dog, chasing after the throng following after Wedge. Some peeled off and crumpled sideways as she made short work of them with swings of her wrists. The last three, sniffing the blood in the air, sprinted off in a loop as Wedge fell to the ground, panting.

They charged Tifa in unison, legs bounding and flesh rippling as they roared. Tifa halted, bent her back leg, and closed her eyes.

Three swipes — and three gashes appeared on the dogs and Tifa turned, scanning the immediate area. Seeing no immediate guns pointed at her, she momentarily put away her sword and jogged over to Wedge.

‘You alright?’ She asked, grabbing his shoulder.

‘Yeah… T-thanks,’ he muttered, as Tifa pulled him to his feet. His hands massaged his butt. ‘I think I ran off that pizza Mrs. R made…’

‘Jessie’s Mom?’

Wedge flinched at Tifa’s disapproving look. ‘It was really good pizza!’

Alarms blared before they could say anything further. Tifa’s sword swung off her back as two platforms dipped and then returned, carrying two sweeper-model Shinra bots. ‘Remind me again,’ Tifa said. ‘How long did Jessie say she needed?’

‘Uhh…’ Wedge moved behind Tifa. ‘Not sure… if she said anything, actually.’

Tifa suppressed a sigh. ‘Okay. Move away.’

‘ _ Hya!’  _ Past Tifa’s head two blue-white devices flew in an arc and landed near the Shinra bots’ feet. A second later they chirped and from them a crinkling white sphere expanded and encompassed the machines. They began to hitch and shake.

‘EMP field!’ Wedge quickly told her. ‘They’re locked up. Get them now!’

She didn’t need to be told twice. Boots flying across the ground beneath her, Tifa heaved and swung her sword in a wide horizontal arc, entire body behind the blade, hair swinging, as she slashed at the jointed knees of the machines. She cut deep enough that their chassis dipped and disconnected from the legs, scraping haphazardly onto the ground. Once there Tifa made quick work of them with two quick stabs.

She was panting by the time she wrenched out her sword from the second one. The sense of warmth creeping around her right side was growing. It wasn’t a big or even noteworthy wound, judging by how quick she was still moving, but at the very least it was annoying and would shave off a few minutes of her peak ability to fight.

Footsteps pounded behind her — Wedge ran right past her, gunning towards the cover of the nearby warehouse. Somewhat haggardly, Tifa turned.

An entire company’s worth of Shinra soldiers were rushing into the courtyard, guns held at the ready and visors blaring with red light. The reinforcements, then. And by the way they were advancing they had their sights on her.

Tifa slowed her breathing and hoisted her sword from her hip again.

One Shinra officer edged to the crowd’s front. ‘All right! Surrender, asshole, or die!’

She counted the number of guns on her — twenty, maybe thirty. There was no way she would be able to charge them head-on without getting hit. Another path. Use the crates in the courtyard as cover, maybe.

‘Hey!’ The lead soldier shouted. ‘We’re talking to you! Answer— question — or you’ll —  _ vrrrrrrmmmmm _ .’

Whatever he was going to say was drowned out by a loud, droning,  _ growing _ engine noise: Tifa watched as the Shinra soldiers looked skyward, gaped — as a crimson red bike crash-landed between them and her, tires smoking and exhausts shooting flame. Long blonde hair was flicked away from the driver’s neck.

Tifa groaned. This guy? How’d he repair his bike so quickly?

‘ _ I’m here, my love! _ ’ Without sparing any theatrics Roche slowed and stopped his bike a few yards away from Tifa. His sword hummed, rung, and sailed through the air as he stepped off the bike and approached her. ‘ _ I’m here for our rematch!’ _

Her body tensed as Tifa tightened her grip on her Buster Sword. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘ _ Crazy for you, but of course!’ _ His arm jerked to the side, sword striking the ground, manic face lighting with sparks. ‘ _ No one else can offer what you can — an equal fight! I was enthralled by our earlier dance!’  _ His sword tip rose, pointing directly at Tifa. ‘ _ And I will not  _ **_rest_ ** _ until we dance again, without aid or interruption!’ _

Tifa quickly glanced at the Shinra soldiers surrounding them. They were… backing off. Her attention flicked back to Roche. Of course. He’s a SOLDIER. He has seniority. What he says, goes. ‘A fight, just between the two of us?’

‘But of course!’ His head lifted as if pulled by his chin, his blue-green eyes pulsing as they stared down at her. He slowly stepped forward, sword still pointing in the air towards Tifa. ‘You turned the key to my heart… and now that engine is awakened! My heart roars with excitement!’

Tifa flinched as the air shifted around her: a last second turn of her blade deflected an arc of silver racing for her right arm.

‘And, off that bike…’ Roche straightened behind her, sword turning back, ‘... _ I’m as fast as ever! _ ’

Three quick swipes came Tifa’s way, rapidly forcing her feet back as she twisted and turned to catch every cut.  _ He’s fast.  _ She misstepped and she felt some fabric on her left leg open up.  _ Really fast. _

A lunging thrust made Tifa roll out of the way, sweat-ridden hair clinging to her neck. His weapon was lighter than hers, well made for quick, individual strikes. Almost like a fencer. Her Buster Sword was heavier, longer, wider — better as an all-around sword and shield, good for uninterrupted movements, slower — but handy and more useful in the right hands.

She rose, hands twisting around her sword’s grip. If she could find the right angle on him, and make sure he wasn’t lurching for her at the same time, she’d get him.

He rushed her again, sword swiping in rapid succession after succession, and Tifa ducked, avoiding a horizontal swipe, then a vertical one as she hopped back. Extended, however, Roche couldn’t avoid the flat of Tifa’s blade as it swung around her body and crashed into his quick-raised block to his left. As expected her weapon was too heavy and his too light to properly absorb her attack — Roche stumbled to his right, left side smacked by her sword’s weight, and grimaced as his left wrist flashed up —

Coming inches away from Tifa’s face. Even when stumbling, he nearly licked her.

‘Heh… heh…’ Roche laughed under his breath as he straightened, body doing so in phases like a puppet being pulled. ‘I told you…’ His sword suddenly flashed upward. ‘We’re going to push it past the redline!’

He hadn’t said that, but any other thought Tifa might have had were blown away as a flat band of wind, green-white slicing through the air, slammed into her and pushed her back. As she glanced up she saw Roche’s blade slash rapidly through the air, throwing more colored bands through the air. Tifa grunted as she rolled out of a few, blocked a few more, and got hit again by the last one sent her way. The taste of dirt filled her mouth as she fell onto the concrete, sword sliding away from her but never leaving her grip.

As she pushed herself up she heard the rapid approach of footsteps — with a yank of her weapon she placed her free hand underneath her and spun around, sword balanced on her legs and held by her right hand as it carved through the nearby air. Roche’s forward slice, sweeping inches off the ground, was blocked, even as he jumped into the air and sailed back down, sword’s point aiming for Tifa’s midsection.

Her eyes widened a fraction before she kicked her legs up, throwing her blade flat through the air above her — batting away Roche’s weapon and knocking him behind her, arms and legs skidding and body rolling. When her sword  _ thunked _ into the ground behind her, Tifa flipped onto her front and stood, blade lifting an inch off the ground once she did.

Roche was slow to rise. ‘Your defense… is…  _ impeccable!’  _ He roared as his sword swung away, unleashing a trail of fire in Tifa’s direction. Calmly Tifa accessed one of her materia and cut across the ground in front of her, unleashing a swath of frigid cold that met the flame and devoured each other.

In frustration Roche sent a number of similar elemental attacks across the ground, ice, lightning, each met by Tifa’s cool use of the right materia, until there was nothing between them except a taut stare and smoky vapor rising from the concrete. He panted, holding her breath even with hers, until the will left him and he sank to his knees, unable to disguise his exhaustion any further.

She recognized the look in his eyes. Tifa sheathed her sword. ‘Satisfied?’

He didn’t respond immediately: slowly, he got to his feet, sheathed his sword on his back, and slowly walked over to his bike. ‘For such a short fight?’ He mused, placing a hand on the seat. ‘Hardly.

He sidled onto his seat. ‘I’ll remember…’ he said, still catching his breath, ‘...there are greater heights you and I can still soar to.’

Tifa stared at him, then thrust her vision away: alarms started blaring as more doors to the warehouse opened, revealing more lumbering Shinra machines of the type she had dispatched earlier. Not only that, but the Shinra troops seemed to be moving in again. Whatever deference they were showing earlier was now over.

Her eyes quickly scanned the perimeters of the first and second-floors of the warehouse. Did Biggs and Wedge leave her here on her own?

‘ _ Oho!’  _ Without warning Roche’s red bike sped past her, nearly knocking her aside, and just as she was about to ready her weapon for an imminent follow-up attack, she saw his bike barrel into the nearest line of Shinra soldiers, knocking them like bowling pins, until wheeling around and driving lengthwise across the machines’ fronts. Plating and circuitry spun out from under his tires; stripped of crucial sensors the line of bots shuddered and collapsed.

‘My  _ love! _ ’ Roche cried dramatically, swinging past her again, heading towards the courtyard’s exit. ‘We  _ must _ do this again! So until then…’ His bike’s front popped into the air as flames blasted from his exhaust. ‘Try not to die!’ And with that he slammed straight into the gate — a gate, she now realized, that must have closed behind them while they were fighting — and  _ busted it open _ , driving right on through into the night.

Her gape dropped even further as black ski masks in full-body olive military fatigues streamed into the courtyard through the busted gate, firing on Shinra soldiers and bots — and  _ her _ . Tifa ducked out of the way of a rocket and dove behind a crate as a full-on firefight erupted around her.  _ What now? _

‘Tifa!’ Biggs nearly slammed into her as he dove into cover beside her. ‘There you are!’

She eyed him. ‘Where were you?’

‘Meeting up with Jesse,’ Biggs explained. ‘She got what she needed and will meet us outside.’ With surprising force he pulled her up and into a run. ‘Come on!’

* * *

Tifa was far too confused by that rapid-fire succession of events to say or ask anything as they ran out of the courtyard. Then, once she did have a question to ask, she was forced to remain silent as she and Biggs had to edge around Shinra patrol vehicles responding to the scene. It was only once they had snuck into a service alley, crouching behind some trash cans, and confirmed her wounds were minor did Tifa turn to Biggs, brows close to her eyes.

‘What was all that?’

Biggs’ revolver shook a little in its holster as he checked it was secured. ‘Hold on one more second. You hear that?’

Tifa did hear that, actually. Two pairs of footsteps rushing towards them. Just before she could free her sword from her back Jessie, dragging Wedge along behind her, darted into the alley and hid behind a line of crates on the other end. Clumsily Wedge rolled and landed against a pile of trash next to her.

‘Nice!’ Biggs whispered. ‘You made it!’

‘Barely!’ Jessie sneaked a glance over the alley. ‘That was a lot of grunts to avoid!’

‘HQ made a mess. What can you do?’

Wedge rolled onto his belly. ‘Ow… ow. My butt…’

‘Oh, you’re talking about the dogs, right?’ Biggs asked.

‘No… I think I got shot…’

Jessie and Biggs both mini-jumped at that. ‘We need to check!’ Biggs said, scrambling over to him on his hands and knees and Jessie grabbed his waistband.

‘This’ll only be a second,’ Jessie said.

Wedge buried his head in his arms. ‘It  _ hurts!  _ Just check!’

So Tifa had to wait a little while longer to ask her question — because she had to look away — as Biggs and Jessie looked like wise philosophers as they studied every inch and detail of Wedge’s bare butt.

‘You’re fine,’ Biggs assured him, sitting back. Some bruising, but no blood. Guess the dogs didn’t really get to you.’

‘Oh, good!’ Wedge cried as he pulled up his pants and spun around. ‘I was really worried there for a second!’

‘So.’ Tifa said. ‘What just happened back there?’

Wedge leaned in, suddenly interested. ‘Yeah, who was that guy you fought?’

Biggs’ hand slapped his shoulder. ‘Didn’t you see his bike? He was the dude who attacked us earlier on the train tracks.’

‘Oh… yeah.’

‘Nevermind that.’ Tifa grabbed their attention. ‘Who were those other people? The ones in fatigues?’

Jessie peaked over her crate, then raised her voice a little. ‘That was HQ— Avalanche HQ. Our allies, sorta.’

Tifa squinted. ‘There are more than you three and Barret?’

‘I’m flattered you think us and Barret could have sole rights over such a cool name. But, no, Avalanche is a  _ big _ organization. There are a few other cells in Midgar, though there isn’t anyone else in our group you haven’t already met.’

‘For the record,’ Biggs jumped in, ‘we really don’t talk to them anymore.’

‘Why’s that?’ Tifa asked.

‘Differences of opinion. They wanted to militarize more like Shinra and do more supply raids and full-blown military operations. Basically run a shadow war for control. We, on the other hand, just want to burn it all down.’

‘Different methods,’ Wedge added on. ‘They also think ours is a little extreme— blowing up reactors and all.’

‘Anyway,’ Jessie rose and started sneaking further down the alley. ‘Let’s get a move on, yeah? We can continue this chat once we’re in a safer place.’

* * *

Jessie’s guidance took them down the main street they had come by — around the growing crowds and Shinra security presence — and into a maintenance section of the plate. Between the grating of the old catwalk under their feet the dotted lights of the Sector 7 Slums shone on far below, undeterred by the total darkness of the junkyards surrounding them. 

‘Here.’ Jessie led them to the catwalk’s end at a small metal shack. Beside it was a shiny-looking crate. Her smile grew as she strode over to it and opened it. ‘Yep! All here!’

She lifted what appeared to be a backpack with larger-than-usual shoulder straps. ‘And what is that?’ Biggs asked.

Smirking, Jessie gave one to him and pulled a second one onto her back. She rolled her shoulders as she stepped over to the catwalk’s railing and peered down. ‘Clear shot down. Alright!’ She spun, fist pumped. ‘Let’s jump!’

For once, Biggs and Wedge shared Tifa’s level of enthusiasm. ‘Jump?’ Wedge repeated. ‘From… here?...’

Biggs walked over to Jessie and glanced over the railing. ‘To… all the way  _ down there? _ ’

‘ _ Dummies,’ _ Jessie said sharply, grabbing one of her backpack’s straps. ‘you  _ do _ know these are parachutes, right?’

Biggs and Wedge shared a look, and when Biggs walked back over they took turns poking and turning the other pack. ‘Huh… so it is.’

‘There’s only two, though,’ Wedge said.

‘That’s what these big front straps are for.’ Jessie walked over to Tifa. ‘It’ll be two for each chute.’ Unexpectedly she roped an arm around her. ‘So, me and Tifa, and you two. Sound good?’

‘Parachute, huh?’ Biggs held it up above him. ‘And… one person controls the chute and all, right?’

Wedge spotted the greedy look in Biggs’ eyes. ‘Hey, wait a second, what if I wanted to steer us?’

‘Well, then you’d be out of luck. I got the pack.’

‘You were  _ handed _ it!’

‘Hey,’ Jessie whispered into Tifa’s ear. ‘They might be at this for a while. Do you know how to use a chute?’

Tifa scowled at her. ‘Is this another bike situation?’

‘I  _ could _ fly us,’ Jessie said with a smile, ‘but I’d rather have you take us down. It would be a good cap to the night… a good ending to our  _ magical _ night together.’

‘...Alright.’ What was one more request? This night had been full of them.

* * *

It took a few minutes for Wedge and Biggs to sort out their differences — which really meant Biggs won out — and Jessie to show them the ins and outs of the parachute. About a minute after that they were standing on a pipe overlooking the Sector 7 Slums, Jessie strapped to Tifa’s front, Wedge to Biggs’.

Tifa had to admit: the slums looked pretty picturesque from up here. So many spots in the dark like stars in the sky, made all the more ironic that she had to look down and not up to see this. But the people living on the plate above never saw this. They only had to look up.

‘Alright!’ Jessie’s hand shot to her left, fistbumping Wedge and Biggs in rapid succession. She paused for a moment— and Tifa realized she was searching for her fist, but eventually she gave up and bopped her on the shoulder instead. ‘Great mission, all!’ She bent her knees, swaying Tifa. ‘I appreciate all of your help… and, also, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to Barret until after tomorrow’s mission.’

Biggs flashed an “ok”. ‘Course,’ Wedge agreed.

She half-turned her head towards Tifa. ‘Yes,’ Tifa replied, monotone.

Jessie smiled. ‘Good. So, one last time, so Shinra and all their goons can hear:  _ Hurrah, Avalanche!’ _

‘Avalanche! Avalanch--  _ Aaaah! _ ’ Wedge and Biggs cheered, just before Jessie shoved them off balance and, consequently, off the pipe. Tifa’s eyes widened; and then Jessie threw her weight forward and took both of them into the air.

‘ _ Waaaahoooooo!’  _ Jessie yelled, limbs shooting in every direction to feel the air pushing against her. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip as Tifa steadied them; after another second she managed to yank the cord flailing in the wind behind her right shoulder. Fabric plumed out from their pack and tugged, then eased them in a slow glide.

Jessie was still bounding in her harness like an overexcited kid as they slowed. ‘What a rush!’ She said, stretching her arms and kicking her legs through the air. ‘Pretty great, huh?’

‘They made us parachute a few times in SOLDIER,’ Tifa said. ‘I was never a fan of it.’

‘...Hm?’ Jessie twisted in her harness, a glow to her face. ‘That was… almost  _ conversational _ of you. Are you finally warming up, Tifa?’

Inexplicably Tifa felt her cheeks heat. Was she… embarrassed?

‘Hah.’ Jessie playfully looked away, head bent like a knowing kid. ‘Nevermind…’

From there they floated peacefully, silently, to the ground, seeing the vague and shadowed shapes of the slums sharpen as they approached. They landed without issue in a small courtyard and soon enough they were detached, both stretching in a mostly-dark clearing in their own time.

‘Hey.’ Jessie caught Tifa’s eye. ‘Walk me home? It’s not far.’

And so Tifa accompanied Tifa through darkened boulevards and empty alleys, the soft green glow of some type of mako lamp always hiding just around a corner. Jessie made some claim that the slums late at night could be scary, and prodded her until she was allowed to hang onto Tifa’s arm as they strolled along. For whatever reason, Tifa kept thinking about a frog boiling in water.

By the time they reached Jessie’s place her head was resting on Tifa’s left shoulder and she was very reluctant to let go. Tifa swore she pulled on her clothing as she moved away.

‘What a night.’ Jessie said, padding to her door and turning to lean back on it. ‘Bet you didn’t think it’d be all that, huh?’

Tifa thought about that. ‘It was reasonable,’ she said.

‘Reasonable,’ Jessie repeated with a smirk. ‘That’s one way to put it.’ She shook her head, still smiling. ‘Anyway. Anything else to say before I pay you and end our wonderful time together?’

To Tifa, it  _ felt _ like Jessie was fishing or something; for maybe she was just being playful again. She couldn’t tell. Her mouth kept bending and shifting into something resembling amusement. What she was flashing in those in-between states was indecipherable to Tifa. As much as she didn’t want to accept it, she was terrible at reading Jessie.

It did occur to Tifa that there was something she could have mentioned, encouraged by Jessie’s abruptly earnest eyes. She could have said that what Biggs and Wedge had told her about her comatose Dad had resonated with her. Tifa felt like she could understand what that felt like, which… felt  _ odd _ to her, though she couldn’t place why. How could she understand something as traumatizing as that?

‘...Nevermind.’ It wasn’t her place to say sorry for what happened to her Dad. Not now, and never would be. ‘The materia?’

Jessie might have pouted quickly, subtly, but in a split-second she was in front of Tifa, placing the red orb in her hands with a smile on her face. ‘Thanks again for the help,’ she said, hands lingering over Tifa’s. She turned, then stopped, then turned again.

‘I’m thinking… tomorrow night, if you’re available, you should swing by my place.’ Jessie gave a shy-but-not-too-shy grin. ‘I feel bad that I made you stay outside earlier while Biggs and Wedge got to try my Mom’s cooking for free… so how about I do the same for you? We’ll dine on some of my family’s famous Midgar Special pizza. And we’ll chat.’

It was the first time since coming to Midgar that Tifa was being asked to do something in advance and not right before. She wasn’t used to the idea of planning — nor comfortable with knowing for sure something wasn’t going to come up between now and then. 

She also didn’t know how to feel about all that Jessie detailed, either.

‘No promises,’ she decided.

Jessie made a funny face. ‘Well. Tifa… what’s your last name?’

‘Lockhart.’

‘Tifa Lockhart.’ She opened and slid behind the door to her house. ‘...Sleep well,’ Jessie said, winking, before her head disappeared and the door closed.

Tifa stood there for a time, replaying the last few minutes in her head again and again, and once she was sure there wasn’t any sense to find, she and her souring face walked off into the night.

* * *

The night went by in its typically hurried-but-pleasant fashion. As the hours stretched towards the early morning Cloud became more assertive in turning away the already drunk and chatting to the few remaining regulars still around while he closed and cleaned more sections of the bar. After saying goodbye to his last customer he shut off the neon light sign outside, locked the front door, and slid behind the bar to serve one last drink.

Barret lifted his glass to the light. ‘There a spot in this?’

Leaning over the bar to his right Cloud squinted at it. ‘Don’t think so. Want another glass?’

‘Nah.’ Barret brought the brown-black drink to his lips and took a swig of it. ‘Would be a waste of the liquor.’

As long as Cloud had owned Seventh Heaven and known Barret, he had always asked for the same drink — a special-made mountain gin scented with berries from the Western Continent. From what Cloud knew from his supplier, it was popular at the Gold Saucer and incredibly expensive to ship all the way across the sea to Midgar. But Barret always passed along enough Gil that Cloud would never complain about the price — or ask if there was a reason for such an exact preference.

Cloud had known Barret on-and-off for nearly five years now: he’d picked up that, like himself, he had a past he didn’t want to talk about. In truth Barret probably knew and felt the same towards him. But because they both avoided those topics, they could freely talk about anything else after a long day and at the end of a longer night. That had been their lifeline for as long as they’ve known each other.

‘So are we going to talk about what’s going on, Cloud?’ Barret finished the last of his gin and pushed the glass to the side. 

‘I take it you’re referring to Tifa,’ Cloud said as he grabbed the glass and placed it in the sink behind him. ‘What are you seeing?’

‘Ever since she showed up you’ve been all out-of-sorts.’ Barret, arms stacked on the wooden bar, straightened atop his stool. ‘I’m not going to press for any details I don’t deserve to hear. But, uh… is it a…’

‘Not a relationship thing, no,’ Cloud answered for him. He quickly washed out the glass, set it on a drying rack, and looped around the bar so he could sit next to Barret. ‘It’s…’ he said as he slid into his seat, ‘...more like we knew each other growing up, and now she’s very different from what I remember.’ His brows furrowed. ‘It’s shocking, actually, how different she is.’

‘I see.’ Barret peered up at the ceiling. ‘I’ll give you a free piece of advice. The past is never pretty in the present. Your mind warps your memories, paints the good over the bad… and sometimes it can be hard to let go of that good.  _ Really _ hard.’

‘Mm.’

‘It's okay to miss the good, you know.’

‘I know. It’s, just…’ Cloud’s hands threshed through his hair. ‘How do I put this? I feel an obligation to help her.’

‘Yeah.’ Barret showed a slice of his face to Cloud. ‘And why is that?’

‘The past, maybe.’

‘Nuh-uh. The past is the past.’ Barret jabbed a finger at Cloud. ‘But something in the present is making you hold on. What is it?’

Cloud stared at the bar for what felt like the hundredth time today. ‘I’m… not sure, actually.’

‘Is she helpless?’

‘...less than I thought, I think,’ Cloud acknowledged. ‘She’s more than capable of holding her own, from what I’ve seen today.’

‘Then is she wrong?’

‘Hm?’ Cloud glanced curiously at Barret. ‘What do you mean?’

Barret’s left arm slid across the bar as he stretched out. ‘Wrong! Misguided! Acting like a fool because she don’t know better! For example: I get the sense that she thinks Avalanche is full of shit!’

Cloud cracked a smile. ‘You could be right… She might think badly of us... but there’s more to it, I think. I just can’t put it to words…’

‘Yeah?’ Barret waited to see if Cloud would say anything more. ‘Well, if that’s true, keep thinking on it. And if it’s your personal business, it’s your personal business. But remember Cloud — I’m gonna be  _ mad _ if this ends up being a relationship thing and you didn’t tell me now.’ Barret spread a hand over the bar. ‘You went as white as a ghost when she stumbled into the bar a few nights ago! Couldn’t say more than a few words at a time without letting your mouth hang open like an idiot. Can’t have that if I ever  _ need _ to be in the same room as the two of you…’

Cloud’s mouth curled. ‘I remember. I’ll keep you in the loop.’

‘You better. Especially if-- well, we can talk about that tomorrow morning, if my Gil comes through and the others are still a go for the mission.’ Barret rose from the bar. ‘I’m going to check that Marlene’s sleeping soundly before bed.’ He gestured with his hand before strolling around a corner towards the back of the building. ‘Night, Cloud.’

A frown formed on Cloud’s face as he pieced together where Barret’s interrupted sentence would have ended. ‘Night.’

Some stray knocks came from the double door behind him but Cloud’s gaze lingered on the wall behind the bar. He inspected the drinks, glasses, plates and towels, and finished on a yellow flower just clearing the edge of a glass of water.

After five years of toiling he had stitched back together a life — maybe not a great one, but a life still, and a life worth trying to keep together. But if those five years of struggle had taught him anything, he knew first-hand the terrifying power of change. And just like that day five years ago, alongside the smell of burning timber and death, Cloud today could smell that change was in the air. Good or bad, it was coming.

This time, Tifa would be here. He hoped that meant something.

* * *

In the near-dark, the only light present struggling to filter through pitch-black curtains, Tifa sat on her bed, sword leaning on the wall beside her, hands folded in her lap, at rest. Underneath her clothes nicks and wounds she had suffered earlier in the day were neatly bandaged and wrapped and well on her way to healing. The temperature inside her room was cool and, unexpectedly, refreshing. She was ready to sleep.

She should have already gone to sleep, actually, but for whatever reason something in the air was keeping her up. Some smell or sound that she couldn’t perceive but nonetheless could sense. She had listened intently to the rooms around her. In front of her the wall she shared with Cloud was deathly silent — meaning he hadn’t returned from Seventh Heaven yet.

The wall behind her seemed to… moan, almost, but Tifa was more than certain than that was the wind, or the person in that room was very sick. Either way, it wasn’t any concern of hers.

Today none of her low-grade headaches had surfaced, which was a blessing. After yesterday’s mission she had worried she would face more of them today. But she was wrong to worry: with Cloud, she had swung through the slums without issue, and with Avalanche, she had pulled off a heist, no problem.

She had done a lot today, she realized. She was surprised she wasn’t tired. She was even more surprised that she had things to think through. Jessie was…

...

Moving on… 

Tifa wondered what she was going to do tomorrow. From yesterday and today, she had no more work lined up. She wasn’t about to starve but she didn’t have the time to be idle, either. She would need to find some pay, somehow. If not here in the Sector 7 Slums, then in the other slums, or plateside — or even beyond Midgar and its steel sky.

She wondered — what would Cloud think of that?

Her hands momentarily relaxed and pressed into her thighs. After a few seconds of indecision she leveraged herself into bed, arms slowly folding behind her head.

She wasn’t sure what he wanted of her. She had done the mission with Avalanche as asked yesterday. She let him walk around with her today — and then tried to dictate how she did her work. Which made sense, considering he was never in Shinra, never fought or bled or suffered for the mistakes of others. She had learned a long time ago that expedience was sometimes just that — quick, without any complications or consequences. She still felt sure that killing that guy — Jimmy, was it? — would have been the fastest and easiest solution to their problem.  _ He’s a talker. _ Whether Barret and his gang acknowledged it or not, blowing up a reactor put a target on their backs, and if Cloud got caught up in that —

Well, that would be bad.

Tifa closed her eyes, recalling a newly remembered memory. What had he asked for on the tower?  _ A promise _ . To save him if he was ever in trouble.

Was… was he in trouble?

After a moment Tifa’s eyes opened again, searching for something that wasn’t there in the gray ceiling. His cause was his cause, she decided, and not hers; no amount of Barret’s preaching or Cloud’s pleading or Jessie’s or Biggs’ or Wedge’s less-than-happy personal revelations could change that. She couldn’t fake her support. They were just another group with a sword to grind with Shinra. They weren’t righteous or morally superior. They weren’t even unique. Shinra held the keys to Gaia and others wanted to snatch them. That was how it was, and how it would be. They knew that, and they chose that.

For all that, though — Tifa decided she should help Cloud. For a day, at least. To pay back his help today. And then take things from there. That was fair. That was just. So tomorrow, if nothing else came up… she could get a start on that.

Thankfully, eventually, she fell asleep. With a plan underneath them her thoughts were calm enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to everyone who has left reviews. If you haven’t received a response you’ll receive one soon. I just wanted to get this chapter out without any further delay :).

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a fic idea that came to me and one I doubled down on when I realized no one had ever run with this concept before: how would the story change if Tifa and Cloud had swapped positions? What if Tifa had joined SOLDIER and Cloud had stayed behind in Nibelheim? So this first chapter is an exploration of that idea. It's my goal to eventually get through the entire plot of the original game.
> 
> As for how this interacts with content in the Remake, considering that we know little to nothing about the endgame of what that series will be, I am going to write this fic as compliant as possible with the original game while taking elements from the Remake that I like and feel amplify the original story beats. So expect to see the Sector 7 Plate mission, among other things.
> 
> With that said, I hope you enjoyed and leave a review or comment, good or bad, long or short, or anything in between!


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